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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462926">I Made a Difference to That One</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/whattheflameo/pseuds/whattheflameo'>whattheflameo</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: Legend of Korra</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, F/M, Gen, There Will Be Hurt/Comfort, cw for injury/death of an animal, i am a woman of my word, i will teach everyone about marine mammals and i will use kyalin to do it, look everyones gonna make it in eventually, sorry fam, there will be angst, there will be awkward lin, there will be laughs, there will be marine mammals</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:07:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>46,746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462926</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/whattheflameo/pseuds/whattheflameo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If whales were going to keep washing up on the beaches of her town, Lin Beifong decides that her police force may as well be trained to handle it. She gets a bit more than she bargained for when she meets Kya, head of the local stranding network.</p><p>Modern AU.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lin Beifong/Kya II</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>142</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>212</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The idea for this story hit me like a lightning bolt in Publix one day, and the folks I shared it with seemed pretty excited about it so here it is: marine mammal stranding response!AU. Fair warning- I'm posting this chapter so that ya'll know I didn't forget about this idea, but its gonna take me a hot minute to get a few chapters stacked up so I can update on the regular. Stay tuned I guess.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Any normal person would have been thrilled to spend a day at the beach on the clock. Even in a sheltered cove, lacking the stereotypical rush of waves and sloping dunes, the sand was warm and the water invitingly blue. Her officers were certainly enjoying it, lounging at a picnic table in various states of undress. It was only a level glare from her that had stopped Captain Qin from pulling a football out of the van.</p><p>Lin Beifong was anything but thrilled at the moment. She glanced down at her watch again and huffed in annoyance. Their so-called training session was scheduled for ten o’clock. It was already five after; it seemed as though this one would be no more professional than the last. If the head stranding whatever-she-called-herself was going to cancel again, Lin would have no trouble leaving her officers here and going straight back to the precinct. <em> Especially </em>if she sent in the fumbling, jokester grad student that had covered for her during the off-site lecture. Fair was fair- if Lin, as the Chief of Police, made time in her schedule to show up, the woman in charge of the local aquarium could as well.</p><p>At eight past ten, a blindingly blue Chevy that looked at least as old as her 20-something niece rolled into the parking lot. On the driver side door, overtop the fading paint job, was the logo she recognized as belonging to Yue Marinelife Center. The truck swung into a parking space close to Lin’s squad car, not bouncing quite as much as one would expect for an older vehicle but still not smooth. The thing rattled loudly as it shut off. In Lin’s opinion, none of this was a good sign.</p><p>The woman driving jumped out, already clad in a black and blue wetsuit that just barely covered her biceps, and barefoot. Lin stepped toward her, mouth half-open to give this "Kya" a piece of her mind, but then she turned around and Lin froze.</p><p>She’d known plenty of beautiful women, but comparing them to the one standing in front of her may as well have been comparing starshine to the light of the sun. She was at least Lin’s age, maybe a bit older and more than a bit taller. Her face was long and gentle, with laugh lines etched around her nose and (blue, blue, <em> holy fucking blue </em>) eyes. They deepened when she smiled at Lin.</p><p>"Sorry, I caught the bridge on the way over. You know how it goes," she explained in a rushed voice. She lifted her arms to gather up her thick silver hair, and Lin had to remind herself to breathe as she watched the tanned biceps flex as she tied it up.</p><p>"Caught the... yes, well..."</p><p>"You’re Chief Beifong, right?" She left her hair in some amalgamation of a bun and a ponytail that had no right being as charming as it was and stuck out her hand. "I’m Kya."</p><p>Lin mentally shook herself. "Pleasure to meet you," she said as she took Kya’s (<em> warm </em>) hand and shook it. Instinct hollered at her to reach out with her left hand and touch Kya’s arm, to establish who was in charge and get a read on the other woman’s reaction. It was her habit in every meeting, but this time Kya let go before she could make herself move. Probably for the best.</p><p>"Pleasure’s all mine; thanks so much for coming!" Kya tossed over her shoulder as she made her way to the tailgate of the truck. "It’ll be really great to get you guys trained so you can help out in the future." She wasn’t wearing makeup. Lin had no idea why her mind chose that to focus on.</p><p>"Can we give you a hand?" Mako asked from behind her, and she belatedly realized that her officers had crossed the parking lot as well. She prayed that they hadn’t seen her fumbling moments ago. <em> Get it together, Beifong! </em></p><p>"That would be great, yeah!" Kya passed a handful of buckets to Qin and Lian before reaching further into the bed and dragging forward a truly strange-looking creation of rolled up foam and rubber. She handed it to Mako, who stumbled backward with the awkward shape before getting his feet under him. Lin couldn’t help but smirk at his shocked expression. Kya snagged two folded plastic tarps from beneath a large crate and slammed the tailgate back up.</p><p>"Alright, who’s ready to save a dolphin?"</p><p> </p><p>Once they circled up on the beach, Kya’s strange assortment of tools on the ground between them, Lin briefly introduced her officers. "You’ve got mostly leadership, this time," she explained. "Figured we’d see how this goes and work out any issues before sending you the rookies. Myself, Assistant Chiefs Saikhan, Zhao, Qin; Captains Lian, Yung Shu, Katashi, Rani; and Detective Mako. Not leadership, but in the end this is his fault," she finished. Mako shot her an affronted look.</p><p>"So you’re Bolin’s brother!" Kya exclaimed. "I’ve heard great things; he thinks the world of you!" Mako laughed and rubbed at the back of his neck, muttering something about his kid brother.</p><p>Lin raised an eyebrow. It was a poorly-kept secret at the precinct that Mako was the closest thing she had to a son, but she’d only met his brother a handful of times. Despite- or maybe because of- the fact that he was dating her niece. Mako had said plenty about him, though, and it was the pair of them that had really set all this in motion. Bolin volunteered at the aquarium, apparently as part of the dolphin-saving team. <em> Stranding response team </em>, she reminded herself as Kya began a rundown of what they had learned in the indoor part of the training. Kya had asked him to ask Mako to ask Lin if they could start some kind of training for the officers, just to get them familiar with the concepts involved in a marine mammal stranding. Why the coordinator couldn’t ask her herself, via phone call or even a simple email, was beyond Lin. But, she would take any opportunity to have her officers learn how to better help their town. She’d put Mako in charge of setting it up, and that had led them here.</p><p>Technically, the kid had already been "trained," and was just here as something of a liaison. But he had been trained by the ditz who had given the previous lecture, and knowing her level of teaching skill, Lin was keen on seeing how much he had actually learned.</p><p>"The number one thing we’re going to ask you to do is probably handle crowd control," Kya informed them. Lin returned her attention to the woman standing next to her, consciously focusing on what she was saying rather than the way her lips were moving. "I’m sure Korra showed you the videos. People tend to get... overexcited when it comes to marine mammals. Nobody we don’t know comes close, and absolutely nobody under sixteen gets in the water. I like my license and I don’t intend to lose it because some kid gets pummeled by a peduncle."</p><p>A laugh spread around the officers, and even Lin cracked a smile. "That’s the part right above the fluke, by the way. Korra should have gone over the jargon, but if I say anything you don’t recognize, or you’ve forgotten, feel free to stop me.</p><p>"Another thing you’ll probably have to help with is the heavy lifting, which is why we’re so excited to get our <em> big, strong RCPD </em> trained to help out." Before Lin could realize what she was doing, Kya had reached out and jokingly squeezed her bicep. That got an even bigger laugh out of the ring of police, and Lin forced herself to raise an eyebrow to cover up the fact that her heart had altogether stopped beating. The spot tingled even after Kya let go to continue on her explanation. Lin didn’t hear a single word, too busy overanalyzing every part of the split-second interaction. <em> Why had Kya picked her, of everyone present? Could she have wanted to touch Lin specifically? Or was it just because Lin happened to be standing next to her? But if that were true, why wouldn’t she have chosen Qin, on her other side? Was she poking fun at Lin? Lin knew she was among the smallest people there, but she was certainly one of the strongest, and she liked to think that showed. Had Kya been impressed by what she felt? </em></p><p>She was forced to refocus again when the group began moving. As the trainer picked up one of the tarps and led them to a more open area of the beach, Lin’s hand subconsciously drifted up to touch the spot where Kya’s had been. Saikhan fell into step next to her, a knowing smirk on his face. "Doing alright there, Chief?"</p><p>Lin glared.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>In the time it took to go over folding the tarps- stretchers, she found out when Kya had opened them to reveal handles sewn into the edges- and practice what seemed like an absurd number of times, she finally felt like her head had cleared. Kya’s presence was still distracting, but she’d gotten over the initial shock. To her surprise, she was actually enjoying the learning opportunity and hearing the anecdotes Kya shared about previous strandings. Half a hour in, they moved on to the strange foam creation. Now that she was closer, Lin could see flippers, cut out of what looked like PVC, tied in strategic locations.</p><p>Kya came to a stop standing in front of it. "This is my friend Cabbage," she said, bending down to reposition the tube so that it faced the water. Sure enough, the word was written in black capital letters down its underside.</p><p>"Cabbage?" Saikhan said with a skeptical look.</p><p>"Don’t ask," Kya told him. "What matters is that he’s our stand-in whale for today. We’re gonna go over how to safely approach and handle a live stranded animal, and most of what we deal with here are dolphins and small whales. Cabbage is the best approximation we’ve got." She turned and pointed at Lin, and Lin struggled to keep her heart rate from spiking again. "You’re on the front left," she turned to point at Qin, Liang, and Yung Shu, announcing "Front right, back left, back right," in succession. "Mako, since you’ve done this before, I’ll put you on the tail.”</p><p>She set the ‘dolphin’ back down on the ground. "There’s a safe way and an unsafe way to approach a stranded animal." She bent down, slowly shifting her weight toward Cabbage until her bent inside leg was pressed directly against the "dolphin," and her arm was wrapped around what Lin supposed was it’s dorsal fin.</p><p>"The main takeaways are, don’t get bit, don’t cover the eyes or the blowhole, and minimize the time where you’re close but not touching," Kya said. "Take a look at how I’m sitting against it. We’ll start with the two front positions. One at a time, left to right." She stood up and gestured for Lin to move forward, but the police chief hesitated.</p><p>"My left, or it’s left?" She asked.</p><p>Kya’s face lit up. <em> Win </em>. "Great question! Anything we talk about will always be in relation to the animal’s perspective- its left and right."</p><p>Lin nodded and moved toward Cabbage, slowly in the same way Kya had.</p><p>"That’s it, nice and close. Keep your outside leg up," Kya instructed when Lin shifted to sit on both knees. "You’ll have more control. Let’s bring in the next person." Qin stepped forward and settled in across from Lin, her arm resting overtop Lin’s to wrap around Cabbage’s dorsal fin. "Good, now we’ll add the back people. Get in as close as you can to the person in front of you, and rest your hand on their shoulder to steady yourself and them."</p><p>Lian and Yung Shu approached separately. Lin felt the younger officer’s hand on her shoulder and their knee pressing into the space between Lin’s and Cabbage. She had a brief moment to thank the spirits that it wasn’t Kya behind her in this position before the trainer said, "Hang on, you’ve got to get closer. Look." She stepped forward and gestured to Lian’s side, where there was a gap of several inches between them and the dolphin. "This is the danger zone. These animals run upwards of five hundred pounds, and almost all of that is muscle. Keeping yourself pressed against it as close as possible means you’ll move with it, not get slammed into and have your ribs broken. Here, let me show you."</p><p>Lian stood up and suddenly it was Kya’s hand on her shoulder, Kya’s chest against her back and her knee forcing itself into the space beneath Lin’s rear. She could feel the warmth that the sun had built up on Kya’s wetsuit even through her own rashguard. The question suddenly occurred to her of what Kya might be wearing underneath the skintight neoprene. Lin had to take a deep breath and hold it to keep from blushing when Kya used the grip on her shoulder to press both of them closer to Cabbage. The strength in her movements came as a shock; Lin had pegged her as strong but not like <em> that </em> . She mentally kicked herself as her mind began to wander again. <em> Focus, Beifong. What are you, thirteen? </em></p><p>Kya reached over to drag Qin and Yung Shu closer as well. Yung Shu grunted in surprise, apparently caught similarly off-guard by Kya’s strength. At least Lin wasn’t the only one. "Don’t be afraid to use some muscle." They held the slightly absurd position for a few moments, huddled over hugging onto what was possibly the worst approximation of a dolphin in the world as tight as they physically could, before Kya stood up and gestured for Lian to retake their position.</p><p>Kya stepped away to arrange Mako behind all of them, going over the details of holding the tail. Lin sincerely hoped the job would never fall to her, because she was too busy trying to place the scent of Kya’s sunscreen. She tuned back in when Saikhan and Katashi were sent to refold the stretcher <em> again </em>. Both men groaned, and though it was good-natured Lin called out, “Lets hope you two are faster at that than you are at making coffee!”</p><p>Saikhan sent her a look that made it clear the attempt to cover her momentary lapse in attention hadn’t worked. It got a few snickers out of Lian and Qin, though, so maybe she was starting to get back to normal. When the men came back with a newly-folded stretcher, Kya began explaining the process of slipping it underneath the animal.</p><p>"The gist of it is: get the stretcher between the volunteers and one side, then push it far enough under that you can pull it up the other side. They’re going to help you by rotating the dolphin a bit and tucking the pecs so you can get in there." They went through the awkward process of adjusting Cabbage’s position and having the tarp shoved between them and it, which turned out to be a way bigger challenge than Lin could have predicted. Once it was done, Kya had each of them grab onto a handle, and counted to three for them to stand up. They made it with little fuss and only a few reminders to keep close to the dolphin even now. After they’d walked about ten feet, she seemed satisfied.</p><p>The process was repeated multiple times, eventually moving into knee and waist-deep water. Lin sighed to herself; they’d warned her to wear waterproof clothing, but the way things had been going, she’d begun to think she could avoid getting wet. So much for going back to the station; if she was going to go all the way home to shower, she’d just finish her paperwork there. At least she’d had the foresight to pack it into her squad car.</p><p>After what had to be the sixth or seventh run, more than long enough for Lin to get over her schoolgirl crush and begin getting slightly bored, Kya instructed them to leave Cabbage on the sand when they headed back out to the water. Lin raised an eyebrow, uncertain of how much practice they’d get in a run without their pseudo-dolphin. She was about to ask when Kya sank down into the water, propping herself up on her elbows. “Alright, I’m your dolphin now. Everything stays exactly the same, but this time, the thing you’re saving can actually move. Mako, you’re the second-most trained person here; you’re in charge.”</p><p>Mako blinked down at the trainer in clear disbelief. “Me?”</p><p>“Mhm,” Kya said, jokingly resting her chin on her hands. Her hair fanned out behind her in a way Lin very pointedly ignored as she saw Zhao and Lian elbowing the detective from either side.</p><p>“Big shot gets to order his bosses around for a change,” Lian crowed. “Come on, Rookie, show us what you got!” Mako shoved at their shoulder, but he was at least smiling now. Lin took a moment to be grateful that he was comfortable enough around the senior officers to relax into the role before she found herself being pointed at as Mako divvied up positions.</p><p>“Careful, Chief, looks like someone’s coming for your job,” Rain teased as she shifted into the front left position. Lin rolled her eyes and she settled across from her. She almost made a retort, but suddenly her hand had nothing to grab where Cabbage’s dorsal fin had been, and she suddenly realized that the ‘dolphin’ she was currently pressed against was much, much prettier than the last one. So much for getting past that crush. Lin set her jaw, determined not to let herself think about the location of her hand as she reached down to tuck Kya’s elbow-turned-pec-fin into her chest. She focused on watching the others get into position until a voice from beneath her caught her attention.</p><p>“Love, I know I’m a dolphin right now, but if you don’t keep my face out of the water I’m going to drown.” Lin and Rian both looked down at the same time, realizing that Kya was struggling to keep her face above water. The both automatically readjusted so that they were supporting her forearms better, lifting her above the surface. Lin swallowed down her embarrassment to focus on Mako’s next instruction, choosing to let Rian apologize for the both of them. In thanks, Kya thrashed suddenly, slamming her shoulders against theirs. Lin looked down again, affronted, and the trainer smirked back up at her. “I warned you. I can move this time,” she said with a wink. Lin looked away so fast she felt her neck twinge in protest.</p><p>They arranged the struggling Kya between the lot of them and got the stretcher underneath her without further incident, despite the fact that she did her best to make it hard for them. She had to admit, once he’d gotten over his initial discomfort Mako had done a pretty great job of being the lead. His directions were clear and he was loud enough to be heard. He only went back and stumbled over the instructions once or twice, and he waited just a bit too long between each step, but other than that Lin had no complaints. It appeared that Kya didn’t either- she nodded for them to continue on. Mako counted down from three and the group stood as one. From her new position, Lin had a decidedly good view of Kya's neck and shoulders. She swallowed when they flexed as Kya continued her flailing. Saikhan, assigned to the tail and therefore half-crouched with his arm wrapped around Kya’s calves, was almost knocked on his ass. Lin risked glancing down at Kya’s face again to see the trainer smirking back up at her. Again, she had to look away when the mischievous glint sent her heart into a tailspin.</p><p>They’d just made it out of the water when Kya wriggled again, deliberately slamming her ribs into Katashi’s knee. His step stuttered but his grip stayed firm, and Lin saw him adjust his stance so that he had his leg positioned closer. The image of Kya squirming like that, damp with seawater and practically tied up, set her already-swimming brain on a very specific path.<em> Get your head out of the gutter</em>, she snapped at herself.<em> You can’t be imagining things like that like some kind of-</em> </p><p>Without warning, Kya thrashed hard enough to dislodge the whole team. Her elbow and shoulder collided with Lin’s hip, which Lin now realized had drifted away from her side. Her grip slipped as she stumbled. The next thing she knew, Kya was tipping toward her, still flailing, and a few of the officers let out less-than-professional shouts. By the time Lin tried to jump to catch her, Kya was face-down in the sand.</p><p>"Oh my- I’m so sorry!" She could feel the blush she had been fighting all morning rush back into her cheeks. Not only was she having inappropriate thoughts about a woman she had only met three hours ago, but now she had literally just <em> dropped </em> said woman.</p><p>Kya sat up slowly, propping herself on one hip. Despite the sand now stuck to the side of her face, Lin realized after a moment that she was laughing. Rani helped her up off the ground, and Lin kicked herself for not thinking to do that sooner. "Don’t worry about it, Sweetie," Kya assured her with a gentle hand on her arm. Lin could feel what was probably by now a beet-red blush stretching all the way to her ears. "Better me than an actual patient. But now we see another reason that keeping that close contact is important- even once you’re standing."</p><p>As she brushed herself off, Qin and Katashi exchanged an obvious glance that they then turned on Lin. Saikhan coughed in a way that she supposed was meant to cover his snickering. Even fucking Zhao raised an eyebrow.</p><p>Suddenly, flinging herself into the channel so that she never had to look at anyone present ever again sounded like the perfect retirement plan. She forced her ears to stop ringing and focused intently as Kya launched into a rundown of what they did right and wrong. Her hands itched for a notepad, but without one on hand she settled for committing every word Kya said to memory. She was <em>not</em> going to screw up again.</p><p>"Alright, let’s go again. Chief, why don’t you take the reins this time? I’d like to get you comfortable with at least leading a small event like this," Kya said.</p><p>Lin nodded sharply. "I can do that," she declared. This was good. Giving orders, having a clear goal and a plan to implement it, that was what she was best at. This was her chance to recover her wounded pride.</p><p>Kya clapped her hands. "Perfect. Mako, not to put you on the spot, but how do you feel about taking my place?"</p><p>"As the- I mean- I guess-” It was a small comfort to see that she was no longer the only one red in the face.</p><p>"Awesome! I’m gonna stand back and help in case she has any questions. I’m sure you’ll make a <em> very </em> cute dolphin."</p><p>Mako muttered something under his breath, looking put out. Within the first few steps back toward the water, Lin could see the other officers already ragging on him again. She and Kya trailed behind the group as everyone reset their positions. It took a bit longer as they continued to hassle Mako, but after a long, awkward morning in which they had all been relatively well-behaved, Lin figured they’d earned a few minutes.</p><p>“So, Chief Beifong, huh?” Kya asked as she leaned over sideways to wring out her hair. “Got anything shorter than that, or…”</p><p>Lin mentally shook herself for the dozenth time. “Lin,” she said quickly, trying to act like she hadn’t been imagining how soft that silver halo might be. “It’s uh… It’s just Lin.”</p><p>“Lin,” Kya drawled as she stood straight again. “Pretty.” The way she pointedly ran her eyes over Lin’s figure gave Lin the tiniest hope that she might have been talking about more than her name.</p><p>Keep talking, keep talking! “Yeah. Uh, sorry again. For, y'know, dropping you,” she said, rubbing at the back of her neck with an awkward laugh.</p><p>Kya smiled at her, the same sunshine-tinted grin from when she’d first arrived, and again Lin’s lungs seemed to forget their job. She reached out to touch Lin’s arm again, so much gentler this time and yet it burned all the same. “Thank you, but please don’t worry about it. It wasn’t the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.”</p><p>“Really?”</p><p>“Oh yeah. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to explain this process to college kids.”</p><p>A monstrous splash drew their attention back to the officers a few yards away. Katashi was on his ass in the knee-deep water, spluttering and glaring up at everyone around him. Beside him was Qin, also soaked and absolutely cackling. Lin gave Kya a wry look. “Try me.”</p><p>The trainer giggled, <em>actually giggled</em>, and Lin felt her confidence gain a bit more traction. Trying to ignore the saltwater taste, she stuck her thumb and forefinger in her mouth and whistled piercingly. Her officers scrambled to their feet, immediately at attention. She raised an eyebrow at them as she and Kya approached. “If you’re done goofing off on <em> my </em>time,” she let the not-quite-threat hang in the air. “Rian, Qin, fold the stretcher and bring it down.” She jerked her head back toward the beach and they took off. She eyed the remainder, recalling what Kya had mentioned earlier about balancing heights and strength. “Front left, right, back left, right. Tail. And you! Dolphin!” She finished, pointing directly at Mako. “Get in the damn water.”</p><p>As everyone got into position, Kya grabbed her by the shoulders and bodily shifted her from where they were standing to a spot a few feet in front of Mako. “Stand right here, in front,” she said from over Lin’s shoulder. Her mouth went dry and she forcibly suppressed a shiver at the feeling of Kya’s breath on her ear. “You’ll get a clearer view of what’s going on, and more importantly, the animal will see you there and won’t try to dart forward and get away.”</p><p>That was it; Kya <em>had</em> to be interested. There was no other reason for her to be standing that close. Definitely no other reason for her hands ghost across the muscle of Lin’s biceps <em> for the fourth time that day. </em></p><p>Just as Lin opened her mouth to attempt some sort of witty reply, the trainer had stepped back again. The sudden distance caught Lin off-guard. Kya was already busy giving comments to the person on the tail, seemingly completely unaffected by the moment. Maybe not as interested as she had hoped. Lin booted her personal feelings to the side when she felt her officers looking up at her for instruction. She ran them through the steps they’d been practicing all day, getting Mako into position and making sure they didn’t ‘accidentally’ let him drown. It couldn’t have been more than ten minutes later that they were all back on the beach, drying off as Kya gave them a few last-minute pointers.</p><p>A ringing sound suddenly came from inside one of the buckets, and Kya reached in to pull a cell phone out of an obnoxiously orange waterproof bag. The thing was screeching an alarm, and the trainer’s eyes suddenly grew wide with surprise. “Fuck!” She silenced the aggravating sound and turned back to the rest of the group. “It’s later than I thought. Sorry to train and run, but I’ve got to get back for a three o’clock medical exam on one of our otters,” she said, all in a rush. “Mako, did Bolin tell you about-”</p><p>“Yeah, he should be here any minute to pick up the gear. You’re good,” Mako assured her. She nodded, distracted by typing something on her phone. “Lin, you have my contact info, right? I’ll be in touch so that we can work something out going forward. The rest of you, it was a pleasure! Hopefully I’ll see you down at the Center sometime.” With that, and one last bright smile, Kya was racing back up the beach toward that awful truck.</p><p>Lin stared after her, still shocked by the sudden turn of events. And, if she were honest, a bit disappointed. It would have been nice to have at least a conversation. But if anyone knew the pressures of a tight schedule, it was her.</p><p>Hearing someone step up next to her, she looked to see Mako standing there with a raised eyebrow. “What?” she demanded, turning to where she could see several of the others watching her as well.</p><p>"Nothing. Thanks for not dropping me," Mako said with a too-innocent look. "<em>Lin</em>."</p><p>She punched him in the arm, hard, and the rest of the group broke out in laughter. “Shut up.”</p>
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<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The call came in fifteen minutes after midnight, but Lin was so focused on the report she was writing that she didn’t even notice the time until the phone was already against her ear.</p><p>"Beifong," she stated, rubbing at her eyes as they suddenly began to sting looking at something other than her computer screen.</p><p>"Hi, Lin? It’s Kya." It was a damn good thing she never forgot a name once she learned it, because there was no further introduction. "I’ve got a stranding just south of the Dragon Flats jetty. I’m headed that way, but I need at least one more body and my team won’t make it in time. Are any of the officers I trained available?”</p><p>Lin did a mental scan of the day’s schedule. The next training wasn’t until later in the week, so she was limited to that first class, and most of them were at home. At this hour, the station itself was on a skeleton crew; she couldn’t spare anyone currently on the clock. But there <em> was </em> one extraneous person around.</p><p>"Yeah, I can be there in fifteen. Is just me enough?"</p><p>"Just you is already more than I was hoping for," Kya said. "The call said it was between markers 22 and 23, I’m sure you won’t be able to miss us."</p><p>"I’ve got two beat cops down that way; they gonna be any use if I send them to meet you?"</p><p>Kya was quiet for a moment, considering. "It can’t hurt," she finally decided. "At the very least they can be crowd control."</p><p>Lin didn’t bother asking why they would need crowd control this late at night. She knew well that time meant almost nothing to curious civilians. "I’ll send them."</p><p>"Awesome. See you in ten." Lin had a feeling Kya had said it deliberately, because she hung up immediately after. No matter; she was pretty sure she could make it happen if she turned on the lights.</p><p>She grabbed a pair of black leggings and an RCPD athletic shirt from one of the bureau drawers in her office. They were going to have to do over her sports bra and underwear. Up until now, a swimsuit had been pointless to add to her office wardrobe. Sneakers, however, she had in surplus. After the fourth brand-new pair she’d trashed at a crime scene, she’d taken to stashing grubby pairs in her office and in whatever cars she used just in case. She snagged the most water-resistant-looking ones and jammed them on. The papers on her desk swept into a locked briefcase to be dealt with later as she rushed about. Almost as an afterthought, she grabbed a pair of knee pads out of the equipment locker. Lin barked a short order at the dispatch officer to reroute the two beachside patrols, shouldered out the door, and dashed to her car.</p><p>
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</p><p>Kya had been right; there was no missing her retina-burning truck, especially when it was parked between two squad cars. Lin pulled in beside them and jogged down the set of wooden stairs that cut a path down to the beach. The moon was full, throwing off more than enough light to see by. Fifty or so meters down the beach, she could see two of her officers standing in front of Kya, who was kneeling in the water beside a shape she assumed was the dolphin.</p><p>The veterinarian saw her and lifted one arm in greeting. "You want me on the other side?" Lin asked the moment she made it over. Kya nodded.</p><p>"Yeah. He’s pretty calm, but come in slow."</p><p>Lin stepped into the cold water and knelt beside the animal. The moment she touched it, it began to thrash back and forth. Both women threw their weight against it and held tight. Lin recalled what Kya had said about dolphins being nearly all muscle, and decided that about summed it up; she had to use most of her strength to keep from being thrown off. And this one was pretty small, compared to ones she’d seen around the harbor or in marine parks.</p><p>After a few more bucks, the dolphin apparently resigned itself to its new companion. As the three of them settled into their situation, Lin glared up at the two officers standing uncertainly on the beach. The situation was certainly out of the ordinary, but uselessness wasn't something she was going to allow. She ordered one back up to the road and one to take care of a group of hovering teens just up the beach.</p><p>Once they’d left, she allowed herself to look down and consider the fact that she was actually holding onto a dolphin. The real thing felt both exactly and nothing like the foam form of Cabbage. It’s skin was firm and smooth, slick enough that if she didn’t have the top fin to hang onto, she doubted she’d be able to keep it still. Just in front of her hand, there was a half-moon shaped indentation, curled on the closed like a pair of lips. When it suddenly opened to let out a harsh blast of air, she realized it was the blowhole; she’d figured it would just be a gaping hole on the back of its head. It was almost prettier than she’d expected, too. Black and white speckles were flecked along its back and sides, almost starlike. They faded to darker ones as they reached toward its pale underside. The whole thing was a mottled, almost black color rather than the standard gray.</p><p>"He’s a spotted dolphin," Kya said when she caught Lin staring. "Not the type most people are familiar with. The good news is, he’s a strong candidate for rehab."</p><p>"He is?" Lin asked, surprised. In both training sessions, Kya and Korra had made it very clear that most strandings didn’t end happily. She'd been impressed that the thing was alive when she’d gotten there. Apparently, this was going to be a night of challenging expectations. May as well learn while she had the chance. "How do you decide that?"</p><p>"There’s a lot that goes into it. Yue doesn’t have any cetaceans in permanent care, but we have the facilities and staff for it. So there’s somewhere we can actually take him. For the dolphin himself, he looks like he’s in relatively good health- not horribly malnourished, no major injuries or parasites or disease symptoms. His vitals are in a decent range. I’ll know more once I have access to more diagnostics, but speaking from experience I think he’ll at least make it to the next checkpoint." Lin noticed that she very pointedly didn’t say the dolphin would make it overall. Just until the next step in a very lengthy process. “You picked a good first case; I always hate saying it, but this hardly ever happens.”</p><p>The concept bounced around the back of her mind as Kya guided her through collecting the vital signs. She waited for the blowhole to open and the dolphin to take one of its explosive breaths, and then began counting down the number of seconds before the next exhale, and then twice more to get an average while Kya focused on heart rate and temperature. By the time they had finished and Kya had written the results down on a folded piece of waterproof paper stashed in the neck of her wetsuit, she was no closer to understanding what would possess an entire industry of people to keep trying the same thing over and over, only to keep ending in the same failure. "Can I ask you something?”</p><p>“If it’s so rare, why keep doing it?” Kya guessed as she shoved a pencil back into her messy bun. The way she looked down at the water informed Lin immediately that it had been the wrong thing to bring up. She didn’t regret it, per se- it was a valid question and she had never shied away from hard truths. But she probably could have chosen a more opportune time to ask.</p><p>"It just seems like a lot of effort for something that hardly ever works out."</p><p>Kya remained quiet for a long time and Lin mentally smacked herself for digging the hole she was in even deeper. Part of her wanted to tell the veterinarian she didn’t have to answer, but the longer she watched the grieved look on Kya’s face, the more it felt like she <em> needed </em>to know. She couldn’t place why; she was usually disinterested in other people’s emotions, if not their thoughts in general. There was just something about Kya that made her insatiably curious.</p><p>"There’s a story my mom told me and my brothers when we were kids," Kya said eventually. "Well, mostly me, because they didn’t really understand it. One day, this old man goes walking down the beach, and he sees a boy picking something up and gently tossing it back into the water. The man goes up and asks, ‘Boy, what are you doing?’"</p><p>Instinctively, Lin wanted to say that the boy shouldn’t talk to some strange man on the beach, because that was a good way to get kidnapped. The way the moonlight created blue-grey shadows around Kya’s thoughtful face stopped her.</p><p>"The boy turns to the old man and tells him, ‘I’m throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out, and if I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.’</p><p>"And the old man is kind of a dick, so he laughs at the kid and goes "There are miles of beach covered in thousands of starfish. You’re not going to make any difference!’</p><p>“The boy listens politely- Mom always emphasized <em> politely </em>, I think she was trying to tell me something- and then he bends down and picks up another starfish, gently tosses it back into the water. And he looks back at the old man and says ‘I made a difference to that one.’"</p><p>She let the story hang in the air for several beats, the words seeming to disperse across the waves around them and back into the peace of the night like fog. Eventually, Kya shrugged and smirked in an oddly self-deprecating way. "It always just made so much sense to me. Maybe it’s silly-"</p><p>"It’s not silly," Lin blurted out, causing the veterinarian’s blue-green eyes to flick up to her. "I... I get it." And she did. It was the same reason she got up and went to work every morning.</p><p>Lin Beifong was under no illusion that her simple police force of a hundred or so officers in what barely qualified as a city next to nowhere wasn’t going to take a chunk out of the crime in the world. She could hold them to the highest possible standard and set the best example in history, make as much noise as physically possible, but that wasn’t going to stop other law enforcement agencies from doing more harm than good in the next county over. On a global scale, she probably wasn’t going to leave much of a mark. But she left a mark on the families desperate for closure when a loved one was snatched away, and on the kids she spooked out of selling drugs and herded into the local Y. <em> I made a difference to that one </em>. "It’s a good story."</p><p>The smile Kya gave her wasn’t the sunshine-brilliant one from the training, but something softer. To say more genuine would have implied that Kya’s normal smiles were anything less, which was patently untrue. This one was just... <em> gentle </em>instead of exuberant. It felt like a connection, like Kya was really looking into her instead of at her and like she may even like what she saw. In the end, Lin was hard-pressed to tell which expression she liked more.</p><p>They sat in thoughtful silence until the dolphin let out another loud exhale. Kya looked down intently, counting the seconds by mouthing the numbers until the next breath. "No change. Korra and the team can’t be that far out now, I’m sure."</p><p>Lin looked up at the moon, imagining the hyperenergetic kid parked in a fast food line or texting at a stoplight. The thought didn’t annoy her as much as it should have. Half-kneeling in the cold water next to a struggling dolphin wasn’t comfortable by any means, but the quiet murmur of the water and the occasional chuffing breath were a strange form of calming. Kya’s willingness to share was disarming. After the offering of the story, Lin felt compelled to give something in response. Deep thoughts, however, weren’t her strong suit.</p><p>"My uncle told this story about the moon and an old Zen Master," she admitted, gruff even to her own ears. "I guess it made the same kind of sense to me."</p><p>Kya studied her curiously. "How did it go?" There was no mockery in her voice, and something in it made Lin want to keep going instead of her typical shrug and "It doesn’t matter." She took a deep breath and started talking.</p><p>"There was once an old Zen Master living the simplest kind of life in a small hut in the mountains. No possessions, plain shelter, all that good stuff. One night, a thief snuck in trying to rob him, but discovered that there was literally nothing to steal."</p><p>Apparently, Kya didn’t have the same compunctions about interrupting that she did. "A thief? Well, I should hope our illustrious chief of police was on the case!”</p><p>"I’d say you were making fun of my age, but I’m fairly sure you’ve got no idea how old this story is," Lin replied. "Anyway, the Zen Master comes back and finds the thief still standing there dumbfounded, and says ‘You must have come a long way to visit me, and you can’t go back empty-handed. Please, take my clothes as a gift.’"</p><p>"His <em> clothes </em>?" Kya asked skeptically.</p><p>Lin rolled her eyes. "Yes, his clothes. The thief, confused as fuck, takes the clothes and runs off. The Zen Master sits down, naked, and looks up at the sky and says, ‘Poor man. I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.’" She stopped there, uncertain of what to say now that the story was finished. "I don’t know what that says about me, that I latched onto a story about letting a thief go and then became a cop, but there you have it.”</p><p>Kya laughed at her and if nothing else, that made the uncomfortable level of sharing worth it. After that, she studied Lin intently once more, head tilted as though trying to figure her out. The moonlight was just barely too dim to parse her expression. The most she got was a glint of a reflection in blue-green eyes that was somehow equal parts intrigued and intriguing. “I’m not sure what it says either, Chief Beifong,” she said. “But I think it’s something good.”</p><p>Lin’s lungs threatened to stop functioning the same way they did at the training days ago, but before she could respond, a blinding white light crested the stairs leading over the dunes. She bit out a curse and moved to shield her eyes before a round of squirming reminded her there were more important places to keep her arms.</p><p>“KYA!” The cavalry had arrived.</p><p>Compared to the earlier part of the night, the final hour seemed to rocket by. A team of Kya’s well trained volunteers had the supplies set up and the stretcher ready to go within minutes, their shouted instructions shattering the calm of the night. The officer Lin had placed at the roadside was opening one of the vehicle access gates so that they could drive the transport truck straight down to the beach.</p><p>Faced with all these new stimuli, the dolphin began his struggles anew. Lin and Kya held tight in an attempt to steady him. A kid that looked a lot like a bulkier, friendlier version of Mako took up a position behind Lin.</p><p>“Hi Chief Beifong!” He said with a grin. “You shoulda seen Mako’s face when I beat him out the door this morning; that <em> never </em>happens.” She glanced around nervously, but to her relief there was no sign of her niece. “Opal’s going to be bummed she missed you!” Bolin continued, clearly misinterpreting her look.</p><p>Lin grumbled something along the lines of “Tell her I say hi,” before deliberately focusing on what Kya was saying as she updated the newcomers on the dolphin’s condition. At least she wouldn’t be confronted with her niece- or Spirits forbid, her sister- at four in the morning.</p><p>She also recognized the grad student from the indoor training, who was approaching on one side of the stretcher. The girl was apparently more useful in the water than in the classroom, as she deftly slid the stretcher beneath the dolphin and waited for the others to get arranged. Then again, Lin supposed there weren’t many ways one could screw up counting down from three.</p><p>Lin’s knees hollered in protest when they stood, having been trapped in the awkward position far too long, and she discreetly shook them out before the next countdown signaled the lift of the dolphin itself. Across from her, Kya gave a wink and did the same.</p><p>On three, they lifted the dolphin up to waist height, immediately repositioning to steady him with their legs. It was easier to bear with three people on either side of him, but Lin officially decided Cabbage was a sorry approximation for a dolphin. There was no way it or a human stand-in could have prepared anyone for the weight of the real thing; she’d have to make a point of telling that to her officers.</p><p>As if the dolphin were trying to make up for the earlier trouble he had caused, the short walk to the van was uneventful. Kya and Korra worked in tandem, calling out orders and positions so clearly that even Lin, who had never actually done this part before, felt confident in what she was doing. Maybe the kid wasn’t quite as incompetent as she had first appeared.</p><p>When it was finally set down, Kya groaned and rubbed at her back. “I’m getting too old for this,” she griped.</p><p>“Which is exactly why I’m riding back here,” Korra said, jumping into the back of the van. “We’ll meet you back at the center.”</p><p>Kya raised her hands in acquiescence, but followed the gesture with a “Be quick about it!” Korra waved her off and pulled the doors shut. Lin flagged down one of the officers.</p><p>“Give them an escort back to the Yue Center, then get back on your patrol. Or go home. Or whatever you’re scheduled for. Other than that, you’re both dismissed.” He gave her a quick salute and headed back toward the roadside. Kya leaned into the window, telling the driver about their new security detail, and settled back beside Lin when the van finally pulled away.</p><p>“Well, Lin, I’d say your first stranding was a success so far,” she teased, bumping Lin’s hip with her own as they walked back up the beach. “We should have it from here, but thank you for helping on such short notice. You remember all the warnings we gave you about the days after a stranding, right? I can send an email reminder when I get the chance, but-”</p><p>“Don’t go near any dolphins for the foreseeable future, and bleach the fuck out of the clothes,” Lin cut her off. “I recall.”</p><p>“Well, someone’s a fast learner. You didn’t even drop the dolphin this time!”</p><p>Lin rubbed at the back of her neck, feeling a blush creep up on her. <em> Just do it, Beifong! </em>  “I’m still really sorry about that,” she said. When Kya began to brush it off again, she pressed on. “Can I take you out to dinner to make up for it?”</p><p>Whatever the veterinarian had been about to say, she didn’t. Instead, she considered Lin for another long moment. Lin prepared herself to be turned down. <em> Of course she’s not interested, did you seriously just ask a woman on a date after trying to save a dolphin with her, are you insane- </em></p><p>“I’d like that.”</p><p>“Wait, really?”</p><p>That earned yet another smile, this one somehow so much warmer than the others. Lin had never been a very prolific writer, but suddenly she was struck by the desire to keep a running list of each different smile Kya shared with her, to describe each of them in enough detail that she would never forget a single one. Again at a loss for paper, she settled for burning the way the light of dawn highlighted Kya’s eyes into her memory.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>At some point in her life, Kya was going to stop being late to things. She couldn’t even blame the Yue Center this time; she’d gone back to her apartment not just at a decent time, but early. It had been ages since she’d gone on a proper date, and she was actually looking forward to seeing Lin again, so she figured Korra and the others could handle closing up this once.</p><p>She rushed down the boardwalk and up the stairs of the little outdoor bar. A quick glance over the tables found the Chief of Police sitting at a table farther from the patio edge. </p><p>It took her less than a second to notice Kya watching her. When she did, her face didn’t exactly light up, but it did brighten considerably from the scowl that seemed to be her default. Kya rushed over and dropped into the chair across from her. “Hi!” She exclaimed, somewhat breathless.</p><p>“Hi,” Lin replied, the corners of her mouth ticking up the slightest bit.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, I suppose this is a good time to tell you I’m perpetually running late,” Kya said apologetically. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”</p><p>“Not at all. There was a bit of a wait anyhow.” This close, Kya could see the subtle flicks of eyeliner and what looked potentially like eyeshadow as well. She hadn’t expected Lin to be the type to wear makeup. “Was it trouble at the marine center?”</p><p>“Nope, all me this time,” Kya admitted, pushing her hair behind her ear. “You look amazing, by the way.” She wasn’t kidding. The button-down shirt Lin was wearing suited her, and the way she’d rolled up the sleeves showed off the deliciously muscular arms that Kya hadn’t stopped thinking about since that day at the training. She’d been wrong about the makeup, but she’d been dead on when she’d pegged Lin for the type that wore slacks to a tiki bar. Someone who looked that perfectly put-together on a beach day wouldn’t wear anything but.</p><p>“Me? You look… I mean, you’ve looked incredible every time I’ve seen you. But it’s nice to know you own something other than wetsuits.”</p><p>Kya giggled and adjusted the fall of her floor-length skirt. “I suppose we have only seen each other in the same gear. So, no chaos for me at Yue, but how about you? I’d imagine the day of a police chief is busy.”</p><p>“Spirits, you have no idea. There’s not much I can talk about, but we finally closed a major case and I am extremely ready to never have to think about it again,” Lin said. “But most of its meetings and planning and paperwork, I have to admit.”</p><p>“Hey, don’t underestimate the toll of administrative work. I’d rather stand for a six hour surgery than have to apply for a grant or fill out our 501c,” Kya said with a grin. It earned a smile from Lin, however small, and she felt like jumping up and down with excitement.</p><p>“I suppose you do have an idea,” she said as the waiter came by to take their drink orders. </p><p>Taking Lin’s cue, Kya ordered a glass of wine to match the whiskey and Coke. Just the one, and if things kept going well, it would be a few hours until she had to drive again. The pair spent a few minutes going over the menu before resuming their conversation.</p><p>Even before the alcohol eased her nerves, Kya found talking with Lin surprisingly easy. She couldn’t say she’d ever had trouble holding a conversation with someone she didn’t know, but by the time the appetizers were in front of them the discussion was flowing as easily as though they’d been friends for years. Talking to her was fun, especially considering she knew absolutely nothing about the other woman. It hadn’t been for lack of trying- Kya had spent the better part of one night scouring the internet for details about Chief Lin Beifong. Social media had turned up absolutely nothing, but a Google search had found dozens of articles about her work as an officer. She’d learned that Lin was great at her job, and that she was incredibly hot in uniform, but nothing personal. Kya was certainly making up for it now- she’d found out that Lin had been born in Gaoling, that her favorite author was Lao Ge and that she wished she had more time to read, that she enjoyed live music but only when it was good. They didn’t have the exact same taste in music, but there was definitely overlap. Lin had a habit of bobbing her head or tapping her fingers against her drink to whatever music was playing and after the first half hour Kya was one-hundred percent sure she didn’t know she was doing it. Each little detail had her wanting to learn more.</p><p>“Is the dolphin doing alright?” Lin asked after their entrees had been brought out. </p><p>“Oh, I can’t believe I didn’t tell you earlier!” Kya immediately sat up straighter, eager for the chance to tell someone about the animal who’d quickly become one of her favorite patients. “Ryo is doing absolutely amazing! It’s still too early for any guarantees, but he’s already on the mend. Aside from the issues that come with stranding in general,” she amended.</p><p>“I’m glad to hear it,” Lin said warmly. “You’ve named him Ryo?”</p><p>Shit. “Oh, well, um…” Kya stammered, all of the confidence she’d built over the evening suddenly dissolving like sugar in hot water. “It’s actually… I mean Ryo is short for Ryokan.” At the time, naming a rescued dolphin after a story she’d been told by an almost perfect stranger had seemed like a grand romantic gesture. Now, it suddenly struck her that Lin might not find it the same. She chewed on her lower lip and stared adamantly down at her lap. “It’s the name-”</p><p>“The name of the Zen Master. In the story.” Kya nodded, risking a glance up at Lin. The police chief was looking at her curiously, but her face was otherwise unreadable. “I didn’t tell you-”</p><p>“I uh, Googled it. I just… it was a good story. I liked it a lot. And you were the one sitting there with me the whole time, so I figured…” She flicked her eyes back to Lin to see a small smile on her lips. It looked almost like she was trying not to laugh. Kya’s jaw dropped open, and Lin apparently couldn’t fight it any longer. “Oh, okay, just let me keep dying over here. I see how it is,” she accused. “Here I am convinced you’re going to think I’m some kind of crazy stalker, and you’re laughing!” Even as she said it, she could feel her own lips pull into a smile as Lin’s polite little chuckles dissolved into actual laughter. The sound was more than worth the blow to her pride. </p><p>“I- I’m sorry,” Lin eventually said. She visibly took a breath to get control of herself. “That was mean, wasn’t it?”</p><p>Kya pouted at her, but there was no heat in her words when she said, “It was. You should be sorry.”</p><p>The police chief arched one perfect eyebrow at her. “Call it payback for all that teasing at the stranding training.” </p><p>Busted. “I’m sure I have no idea what you mean,” Kya said, covering a grin with the last of her wine. Still, she couldn’t help but glance back down at those biceps. Lin caught her looking and leaned forward, letting her arms flex. The expression on her face remained unchanged aside from the slight smirk dancing across her lips. Kya quickly finished her sip to keep from choking. “Okay, okay, fine. Can you blame me?”</p><p>Lin laughed a bit more and sat back, blushing again. Kya was surprised to realize that her drink was almost finished as well. “In any case, it’s a lovely name,” she said, staring at the ice cubes as she swirled them around. “I’m surprised you even remembered the story.”</p><p>“Of course I did,” Kya said. She couldn’t quite read the look Lin gave her when her head picked back up. It was part confusion, part fascination, and it came with the distinct feeling that Lin was trying just as hard to puzzle her out as she was Lin. Their eyes stayed locked together for a long moment and Kya wondered how long it would take her to find a piece of sea glass in the same perfect shade of green.</p><p>The spell broke when a busser came to clear their dishes. Lin sighed before glancing up at the waiter, who was also coming their way. “Can I convince you to stay for dessert?” For such an intimidating woman, she managed to look endearingly hopeful when she asked for Kya’s time.</p><p>She almost said yes on instinct when a thought occurred to her. “Do you have anywhere to be after this?” She asked instead of answering.</p><p>If Kya hadn’t been utterly zoned in on Lin, she would have missed the split second of disappointment in her eyes before her expression shut down. “I don’t do sex on the first date,” she stated, blunt. “I enjoyed getting-”</p><p>Kya backpedaled wildly. “No no no no no no, oh my- I didn’t realize how that sounded, I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out for Lin’s hand where the younger woman had pulled it back toward herself. When Lin withdrew a bit more, she took the hint and sat back. “I just know a really great little ice cream place not far from here, if you want to go for a walk?”</p><p>“Oh.” Lin looked away for a moment. Under any other circumstance, Kya would have been thrilled to see the red flush from their training reappear on her face, but the discomfort in Lin’s reaction had ruined the effect. Something there wasn’t right.</p><p>Before Kya could begin to try and parse it, the waiter finally reached their table. “So, will you be staying for dessert? Drinks, maybe?”</p><p>Lin shook her head. “Just the check. We’re going to go for a walk.” She turned to Kya, her eyes crinkling at the corners as she smiled, and Kya couldn’t help but beam back. Their waiter set a pre-printed copy of their current bill on the table, but before Kya could even think about picking it up, Lin’s hand darted out and snatched it up. She immediately began to protest, but received a raised hand in response. “I said I was treating you to dinner. And that’s what I’m doing.” She’d switched into a no-nonsense tone that Kya didn’t dare contradict. When she said it, it didn’t feel as patronizing as letting someone pay the tab usually did. It was just a simple fact. As the waiter ran the card, she had to admit that it was sweet, and skipping the obligatory argument was a plus.</p><p>“Can we at least call it even now? For the whole ‘dropping me’ thing?”</p><p>Lin pretended to think for a moment, then nodded decisively. “Yes. We are officially even,” she said, still in that serious voice.</p><p>“Good, then I’m keeping the post card,” she said, leaning forward to snag the receipt and sliding the card out of the pocket.</p><p>“The what?” Lin asked, head tilted curiously.</p><p>Kya held it up to show her the image of the restaurant’s entrance along the boardwalk, a picturesque sunset in the background. “You didn’t know? They always give you a free postcard when you leave,” she said. “It’s definitely just their touristy way of advertising, but it’s cute.” She set the card down on the table, using the waiter’s pen to scribble their names and the date on the back. Feeling daring, she also added “First Date” beneath the rest. </p><p>“I suppose it is,” Lin said. “I’ve never noticed.”</p><p>Kya winked at her as she tucked the paper into her purse and stood. “Who knows. Maybe one day we’ll be glad to have it.”</p><p>Lin stepped forward to link her arm with Kya’s as they headed back out onto the boardwalk. “Maybe we will.”</p><p>The night was pleasant, late summer giving way to nights with just a bit of chill in the breeze coming off the water. Storefronts and strings of hanging lights cast a warm glow across the wooden planks beneath their feet, and the railing over the water was lit with white rope lights. The area was always lively on Thursday nights, other couples walking the length of the strip while families with young children sat on benches and climbed the railing to look for needlefish and other sealife. A handful of scattered street performers showed off acrobatics or strummed guitars, creating an atmosphere that was lively but not quite festive. Kya knew her ice cream shop was closer to the opposite end of the boardwalk, but judging by Lin’s smile, she wouldn’t mind. Her pace didn’t seem to be in a hurry, either, and Kya tried not to read too much into the fact that it matched her own rather comfortably despite their difference in height.</p><p>She was both surprised and unsurprised when, as they reached the tiny ice cream parlor, Lin ordered lychee the moment she saw it in the freezer. “I wish I’d known about this place sooner,” she said after Kya finally decided on a dreamsicle cone and insisted on paying. “Nowhere in town has lychee ice cream consistently.”</p><p>“And it’s never crowded because people usually go to the big one closer to the tiki bar. Just don’t give away my spot,” Kya said with a wink.</p><p>The pair of them settled onto an empty bench near the trees at the end of the boardwalk, where they could see the running lights of all the boats coming in and out of the inlet. “Your secret’s safe with me,” Lin promised. She rested her free arm across the back of the bench, and Kya happily took the invitation to scoot closer, but remained careful not to push too close when she recalled Lin’s words from earlier in the night. They finished their cones in comfortable company, and Kya was loath to check her watch and learn that it was getting late enough that she needed to consider leaving.</p><p>As though the police chief could read her mind, Lin spoke up. “I suppose we should make our way back,” she sighed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees for a moment before she stood. Kya echoed the heavy sigh but eventually got up as well. When she reached her full height, her eyes met Lin’s in an unintentionally intense moment. Suddenly, she was very aware of how much <em>shorter</em> Lin was, of how <em>close</em> she stood, of how <em>full</em> her lips looked... She only realized she’d been staring when Lin spoke up.</p><p>“I… I know what I said earlier, but I… that is…” Kya forced herself to stay still, hoping this was going where it sounded like. Lin’s eyes fell down to her lips. “Is it okay if I kiss you?”</p><p>In all her life, no one had ever stopped to ask that question. Whenever Kya had shared a first kiss, it had been an in-the-moment occurrence, even if she could typically predict it by at least a few seconds. On occasion, it hadn’t been exactly welcome. The fact that Lin had been considerate enough to ask for permission set off something warm in her chest. “Please do,” she said, letting her eyes fall closed as Lin began to lean in.</p><p>It was a soft thing, the press of Lin’s lips against her own. Kya could taste the lingering flavor of Lin’s ice cream- strong, different, sweeter than she’d expected, much like the woman herself. She’d have preferred it to go on for the rest of her life, but after a few seconds passed Lin pulled back. Kya didn’t try to stop her. “Thank you.” Lin’s voice was quiet, and her expression made it clear the thanks was for more than the kiss alone.</p><p>“My pleasure,” she replied sincerely. As they headed back toward their cars, Lin kept one arm draped loosely around her waist. Kya leaned into her and tried to figure out how a first kiss could feel like coming home.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>So, I didn't QUITE make "the end of the month," but it was close, right????? Thank you so much to telekineticissue, dont-blame-it-on-the-kids, and whutnot for putting up with my whining as I continue writing.</p><p>For those asking, expect monthly-ish updates unless told otherwise- apologies for the slowness, but y'know, life is out there.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>One kiss became two, and two became three, and three became ten, and suddenly Lin Beifong had been in a steady relationship for almost a month. The concept struck her as she approached the entrance of Yue Bay Marine Life Center. Somehow, she’d managed to keep this thing alive and now she was visiting her girlfriend at work and preparing to actually go home with her for the first time. And what's more, she was excited about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Lin had finally admitted that she’d never been to Yue, Kya had been astounded. The veterinarian had immediately taken it upon herself to change that by making a “date” out of it. Lin was coming to see her at work and get the full tour, and then they’d go back to Kya’s apartment for dinner. She allowed herself a little smile as she recalled the conversation and Kya’s hesitant query of whether she’d be comfortable spending the night. Lin had been wondering the same thing herself, wanting to but still nervous. The genuine way Kya asked and her immediate rambling of “We don’t have to do anything, if you’re uncomfortable, I just thought it would be nice, and this way we can maybe have a bit of wine and-” had put such a warmth into her heart that her fears evaporated. </span>
  <span>She couldn't remember ever being actually excited for something like this before; usually these things left her emotionally exhausted before they even began. With Kya, she was beginning to imagine that might not be the case.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The entrance to the Yue Center was appropriately kitschy for Republic City’s seaside district, an amalgamation of bright colors, worn green iron and copper fencelines, and plentiful seaweed and gamefish motifs. She followed a short boardwalk through a wall of thick mangroves that reminded her how close they were to the open bay, and found the ticket counter on the other side. She was pulling out the cash to pay for a ticket when a voice from her left caught her attention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chief Beifong!” Korra was walking with a pair of volunteers around her age, one of whom was pushing a plastic wheelbarrow, but she waved them off through the gate and jogged over to where Lin was standing. “It’s all good, Hasook. She’s with Kya.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No I can-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t worry about it,” Korra cut her off, starting toward the entrance door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The kid behind the ticket counter shrugged and moved on to the next person in line. Lin frowned for a moment before dropping the cash into the donation box to the left of the window and following her. Korra raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on it. </span>
  <span>“Kya must have gotten held up cleaning out the otter enclosure. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she tends to be-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Running late?” Lin asked with a smirk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Korra eyed her for a moment, and Lin got the distinct feeling she was being sized up. “Yeah.” Lin had only met Korra twice, but Kya had spoken of her at length. She was about Lin’s height and considerably well-built. Taking in the braided ponytail and tanned complexion, the obvious explanation became ‘surfer,’ and </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>certainly didn’t help with Lin’s already lackluster view of the twenty-something. If Korra was as nervous as kids her age usually were around her, she didn’t show it. “She’s pretty excited to show you everything herself, so I won’t spoil too much. Hopefully she’ll be done quick once she sees you’re here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They didn’t have far to go to reach their destination. The otter exhibit was a fairly large space, walled off by acrylic a few feet higher than Lin’s head. Through the barrier, she could see Kya standing with her back to them in an oversized pair of yellow waders. She was using a large push-broom to chase water toward a grate along the back of a fake rock ‘beach.’ At her feet, two otters were darting around, jumping over the broom head and dashing between her legs as she walked. Kya was clearly taking care to avoid stepping on or hitting them, but by the shake of her shoulders Lin could tell she was laughing. Smiling down at them, she looked more like a storybook heroine in a seaside tale than a veterinarian pushing around dirty water.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, cleaning with these guys tends to take longer than you plan,” Korra said. “They’re a bit distracting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charmed by the sight before her, Lin went as far as to offer a smile. “I can see that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A bucket sitting on a fake rock tipped over, causing Kya to startle and turn towards it as a third otter streaked in front of her with a green scrub brush in its mouth. She exclaimed something that Lin assumed was its name and put a hand on her hip as the thing ran up a little incline with its new prize. Lin couldn’t help but laugh at the exaggerated indignation on Kya’s face, and Kya looked their way at the sound.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wondered if she would ever stop being surprised by the way Kya’s eyes lit up when she saw her. Her entire demeanor perked up and she waved excitedly. Lin waved back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll be done in just a minute!” She called before the pair of otters wound their way between her legs again and drew her attention away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A group of teenagers were approaching for a view at the glass, so Korra waved Lin over to a less busy area beside a nondescript door. “This is where she’ll come out,” she explained, crossing her arms and leaning up against the wall. She looked Lin up and down again, and this time Lin raised an eyebrow back at her. “So. Kya’s seemed pretty happy this month,” she began. “She thinks a lot of you.” Her expression made what she didn’t say perfectly clear: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m not sure if I do.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>More curious than anything, Lin decided to let the unsubtle line of questioning continue. “How long have you been working with her?” she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About five years,” Korra said. “I did my masters with her and I’ve stayed on to do my PhD.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin nodded, considering. “She talks about you often. All good things,” she added when Korra made a face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The young woman hummed. Her expression was unreadable even to Lin, which was a feat in itself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kya’s basically another mom to me and the other volunteers. I don’t know what we’d do if something came along to make her unhappy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin returned Korra’s look with a steady one of her own. “She’s certainly an incredible woman. I’m glad she has a job and coworkers that care so much about her,” she said in a measured tone. “And I’m lucky she made it to the outdoor training instead of having to send you in again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Korra snorted. “Well, I wouldn’t have forgiven you for dropping me, that’s for sure,” she said with a smug grin. As quick as that, her attempt at a threatening mood evaporated, and she was the cheerful, energetic girl from the classroom training once more. Lin had to admit, Korra appeared much more put together than she had that day. She held a steady conversation and definitely knew what she was talking about when it came to the marine center.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few minutes, Korra stopped looking at her as they spoke and instead focused on something behind her right shoulder. Lin glanced over to what had initially seemed to be empty tank space and saw an octopus clinging to the glass just beside her head. It was a small thing, maybe the size of her palm, and a deep purple color.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She scowled at it. “Is everything in this damn aquarium going to stare me down?” She asked huffily, crossing her arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Korra stepped closer, absently correcting her with “Marine life center” as she considered the octopus. “He’s been watching you the whole time we’ve been standing here.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin’s lip curled. The octopus’s eyes, two narrow black beans outlined in yellow and sitting high atop its squishy head, seemed like they were trying to bore a hole in her skull. Beneath them were two tubelike… </span>
  <em>
    <span>things </span>
  </em>
  <span>that opened and closed in an alternating rhythm that made it look altogether too alien. She was so busy analyzing the creepy little animal she was caught off-guard when Korra reached up and grabbed onto her bicep. Lin spluttered indignantly as the grad student forcibly pushed her to the opposite end of the rectangular tank.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The thing released its hold on the glass, its flabby little body drifting down to the sand floor like a slow-moving ball of silly putty. It balled its wriggling arms beneath itself and then, to Lin’s utter horror, the octopus </span>
  <em>
    <span>lifted itself up onto two of its tentacles and began walking toward her.</span>
  </em>
  <span> She drew in the breath to exclaim “What the fuck?” and just managed to stop herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s gotten curious about things before, but this is weird,” Korra stated, not taking her eyes off the tank. She moved to grab Lin’s arm again and the police chief swatted her away. Still eyeing the octopus mistrustfully, she slowly walked back to where she had started. This time, it kept pace with her, the balled-up shape rolling over itself and its eyes never once straying away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin was still staring in mild disgust when Kya finally stepped out of the doorway. “Badinj is obsessed with your girlfriend,” Korra said before she could open her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya raised an eyebrow. “What can I say? He’s got great taste in women,” she said as she stepped toward Lin. She linked their arms together and pressed a kiss to Lin’s unscarred cheek. “Thank you for waiting with her, Korra.” The grad student grunted in acknowledgement and waved absently, still zeroed-in on the octopus. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya shook her head as she led Lin away. “Badinj is a bit of a special interest for her. We only ended up with him on a fluke, and she’s been fascinated since the day he arrived. I guess I get it; they’re extremely intelligent and I suppose he’s cute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin tossed a final, suspicious glance over her shoulder. “Not sure if that’s the word I’d use,” she muttered.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, we’ll just have to take a look at something else,” Kya laughed. “We close to the public in half an hour, so we’ll have the exhibits to ourselves while the volunteers finish some other things up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That was news to Lin. It was only four thirty; Kya didn’t get off of work until six most days and rarely made it home before seven. She supposed she had known that the final few hours were spent without visitors, but she’d never really given it much thought. The majority of what Kya talked about was the veterinary aspects of her job, behind the scenes rehab that Lin was admittedly interested to see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They circled around the impressive centerpiece tank first, following a winding incline up to the second and third stories. Colorful fish filled every window, darting in and out of rock formations attached to the tank walls, and more than once Lin saw a small shark swim by. At the top of the tank, they were greeted by a massive turtle swimming lazy laps around the tank’s edge. “That’s Melvin,” Kya explained. “He’s a permanent care resident, won’t be released, so he’s become something of the center mascot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How come?” Lin asked just as the turtle turned sideways to reveal a short stub where its back flipper should have been. “Oh.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya giggled at her. “He’s blind in one eye, too. Neither thing on its own would be enough to keep him back, believe it or not, but both together just make his chances too low. So now he stays here and keeps an eye on my volunteers. Telling them he’d be disappointed in them when they do something stupid is suprisingly effective.” They watched for a moment as the turtle’s hard, shiny head lifted out of the water to take a breath, before heading back down the ramp.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya kept up an energetic narrative throughout the afternoon, hardly pausing to take a breath between stories. It was too much to retain all at one time, but Lin committed what she could to memory and spent the rest of the time admiring Kya’s passion for her work. She asked questions when she could get a word in, knowing that Kya loved answering. At Kya’s prompting, Lin had even knelt down beside a pool of stingrays and thrust her arm in up to the elbow. After a few unsuccessful minutes, Kya leaned against her, holding her steady until one passed calmly beneath both of their outstretched hands. She hadn’t hated the feeling, despite the fact that it was slimier than Ryokan had been and left a strange film on her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now that she thought about it, Ryokan was the one thing she had been expecting to hear about today. Kya typically couldn’t go for an hour without mentioning him somehow. Lin finally made herself ask when they were rinsing off their hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya beamed at her. “Ryo’s off-exhibit. We don’t put our cetacean rehab cases on display to keep their stress levels as low as possible. There’s an overlook we skipped where guests can take a look from a distance, but I figured since I have to get an update before we head out, it would be more fun to sneak you back to see him. Unless you’re not interested,” she finished with a cheeky grin. Lin sent her a look and waved for her to lead the way.</span>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>“So, this is where we keep everyone who needs a bit of extra TLC,” Kya explained as she opened the gate to the rehab yard. “We’re behind the manatees right now; the viewing platform I mentioned earlier is over there.” She pointed up toward the two-story deck, which rose up over the series of smaller pools. A handful of volunteers were making their way between the fiberglass circles, distributing food and medication as needed. “It’s mostly just sea turtles, but every now and again we get an oddball; there’s a decent-sized eagle ray in one of them right now. The spotted ones,” she explained as an afterthought, just in case Lin didn’t recall. “The area up here on the right is specifically cetacean rehab.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whales and dolphins?” Lin checked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya’s heart gave a flutter at the fact that Lin had bothered to remember. “Exactly,” she confirmed. She paused near the set of four large, deep fiberglass basins extending a few feet below ground level. Three were empty, but one was about half-full of water. “Ryokan was over here for most of this month, but he’s been doing so well recently that we moved him into the peanut pool Monday.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin raised an eyebrow. “Peanut pool?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya shrugged. “This one,” she said, leading Lin toward the pool in the middle of the yard. “It’s in the shape of a giant peanut, because there’s a divider in the center so we can use it for more than one animal at a time if we need to. It’s directly attached to the veterinary facilities, too, which is another plus, but thankfully Ryo hasn’t needed them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By now, they were close enough that they could see over the wall and into the pool. Ryokan was swimming near the shallow vet-access floor, his dorsal fin just breaking the surface. The speckling along his sides seemed to ripple back and forth as he passed through the mottled shade. When hers and Lin’s reflections appeared, he turned sharply and began cruising their way to investigate. Lin leaned forward with interest and Kya grinned, proud to have impressed her oh-so-serious girlfriend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What ended up being wrong with him?” Lin questioned. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll never know for sure why he stranded, but he had pretty severe pneumonia and an issue with intestinal parasites when he came in, and those may have contributed to it. We’ve had him on antibiotics and he’s responded really well.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Rather than approaching head-on, Ryokan had swung out to their left and was following the contour of the wall. He was laying on one side, swimming almost laterally with one big, dark eye staring up at them above his permanent smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He’s watching us,” Lin commented. She tilted her head in the same direction Ryokan was swimming, and the corner of her lip ticked up. Kya watched, amused, as chief and dolphin studied each other before turning back to her favorite patient. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After several seconds, Ryo had apparently had enough. He abruptly flicked his tail and darted away, sending a splash in their direction as he did. They both jumped backward to avoid it, and to Kya’s utter delight, Lin was laughing quietly. Once he was a good distance away, he circled back for another look. Lin watched as he did, and Kya could tell another question was coming by the little furrow between her eyebrows. “Are their spots unique?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya felt her eyes get wide. “The pattern of them? Yeah, they’re each distinct like-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fingerprints,” Lin finished for her. “Patterns like that usually are, so I figured his might be. Would you be able to use them to get an ID?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya couldn’t help but be impressed by the connection Lin had drawn. People outside the field always had questions, and Kya enjoyed answering them, but she had to admit she liked Lin’s the best. They were usually so much more thoughtful than the standards, targeting complex concepts and giving Kya room to really elaborate when discussing her work, or giving her new ideas to think of entirely. “Yeah, it’s part of how we identify individuals in wild populations. It’s kind of hard to look at the entire pattern, so we focus on smaller, more individualistic marks and usually add those to scars or the shape of the dorsal fin.” She leaned over the rail and pointed as Ryokan passed beneath them again, one hand holding onto Lin’s shoulder for support. “See, he’s got those three black marks right behind his eye. And his dorsal fin is pretty unique with the two big chunks out of the trailing end. So the good news is, when he does get released, we’ll recognize him if someone sees him out there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watched as Lin looked over the markings, and could imagine her writing a mental note of each to file away into wherever she kept her terrifying ability to never forget a face. “When do you think he’ll be let go?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’ll be a few months, at least,” she said. “There are some more tests we have to run and there’s a lot of permits and approvals to get. And anything could change before then.” As she said it, she saw Korra appear at the top of the top of the ladder leading down into the tank, dressed in a shortie and armed with a medical kit. Behind her followed another two volunteers. “Looks like Korra’s getting ready to do her blood draw. You’re welcome to watch if you’d like; I’m going to get my update.” Lin nodded, eyes still focused on Ryokan as the volunteers began their approach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya headed for the set of low bleachers at the end of the pool, where a dark-haired young woman sat taking notes. She peered over Asami’s shoulder at the behavior sheet. “How’s my boy?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Asami rolled her eyes and just passed over the clipboard. “As well as he was this morning,” she said cheerfully. “He’s still really interested in the gate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya hummed as she scanned over the day’s notes. “Any odd posturing? How’d he eat this time? I only saw breakfast.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She could feel Asami’s raised eyebrow, but didn’t acknowledge it. “Nothing out of the ordinary this afternoon, but someone did mention some odd calls when that storm rolled over. And he was just as hungry as he was this morning.” Kya nodded, satisfied, and glanced back up at the pool. The two volunteers had stepped in on either side of Ryokan, and  Korra was drawing blood from a vein low on his tail.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Asami leaned over to bump her shoulder into Kya’s. “So, this is the police officer with the ‘incredible biceps’ that we’ve been hearing about?” she said, wiggling her eyebrows. Kya rolled her eyes and shoved her. “Hey, I’m just saying it’s nice you finally brought her around!” Asami laughed. “It looked like the two of you were having fun earlier; I’m glad you decided to take a break for the day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya snorted. “Yeah, well, don’t get used to it. Call it hovering all you like, but I’ll continue to do it until this guy is back out in the open ocean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And when that’s done you’ll start hovering over something else. And then something else. And we wouldn’t have it any other way,” Asami informed her. “Looks like they’re finishing up. Can you do me a favor and go drop off the forms so I can help Korra clean up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Asami Sato was a bonafide genius. Nothing she did, including volunteering at her girlfriend’s workplace, was simple, and this was no exception. Kya knew for a fact she was being handed the clipboard because it was Asami’s way of getting her to stop standing around by Ryokan’s pool and overanalyzing everything. Kya scowled at her for a half-second before she had to smile. “Alright, alright, I’m going!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin turned as she heard Kya coming back down the bleachers, wearing a warm expression Kya was beginning to grow attached to. She reached out for Kya’s hand and entwined their fingers together. “All set?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I just have to get my things from inside and drop this off,” Kya told her, starting for the veterinary building. Lin reached for the door at the same time it flung open toward them. Opal rushed out and nearly crashed into Kya in the process.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kya! Sorry, I- Oh! Aunt Lin!” She said with wide eyes. “Hi!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin dropped her hand as fast as if she’d been burned, and Kya frowned at the loss. She glanced over at Lin only to find that she looked like she’d seen a ghost. Her posture had gone completely rigid. Kya suddenly recalled Lin’s dodge at the touch tank. At the time, she’d figured it was something to do with not wanting to pet a crab. Had it been Opal she was avoiding?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi, Opal,” she said when it became apparent that Lin wouldn’t- couldn’t?- reply. “Where are you headed in such a hurry?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The young woman was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “I’m on my way to a movie with Huan. It’s so good to see you, Aunt Lin! How are you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The direct question seemed to trigger at least a partial restart in Lin’s brain. “I. Fine. I’m fine,” she stuttered. Her jaw ground into a tight line and she stared at a point somewhere between her feet and the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Opal’s expression faltered when Lin failed to look her in the eye, but she held her smile. “Huan and I were actually just talking about you the other day. I’m so glad you two have started seeing each other, you look so happy!” She tried again. Kya just stopped herself from wincing at how hopeful she sounded. “I’d love to talk sometime, if you think you’ll be around.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin rubbed at the back of her neck. “Uh. I don’t- We were just-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re on our way out, too,” Kya said, unable to stand the awkwardness any longer. She gave Opal an apologetic look, just as confused about Lin’s reaction as she was but unwilling to make plans on her behalf.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Opal’s disappointment was palpable. “Oh, that’s okay. I mean, I have to catch my movie. But it was really nice to see you, Aunt Lin. And Kya, I’ll see you tomorrow, I guess.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll see you then,” Kya told her warmly. “Drive safe!” Opal nodded at her, gave Lin one last searching look, and hurried off. When she was gone, Kya opened her mouth to start grilling Lin, only to find that she’d already rushed inside the building. One eyebrow raised, Kya followed her and vowed to ask about it later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Things had lightened back up by the time they arrived at Kya’s apartment. Lin continued asking Kya questions about her life and the center, working hard to keep conversation afloat and clearly trying to make up for the earlier awkwardness. They were working together to put stir fry on the table, Lin chopping vegetables and Kya at the stove preparing the rice. She waited for Lin to pause with the knife before reaching over and snagging a snap pea from the cutting board. The look Lin gave her in response was an attempt at exasperated, but fell closer to fond, and for a moment Kya was struck by how naturally the moment came.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watched for a bit longer as Lin turned back to her task, swaying almost imperceptibly to the music on the living room speaker. Aside from a few questions about where to find things, she’d taken to Kya’s kitchen like a fish to water, not even hesitating at the ridiculous lack of space. Trying not to trip over each other felt like a dance they’d done a thousand times before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was the kind of domesticity that usually set Kya on edge, but this time she found herself relaxing into it instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me you could cook,” she said, leaning back against the counter and picking up her glass of wine as Lin crossed the kitchen to take over at the stove.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin snorted at her. “This from the woman who waited three weeks to tell me my ex-boyfriend was her </span>
  <em>
    <span>brother</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she replied over the sizzling of the vegetables.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I said I was sorry!” Kya cried, feigning over-the-top remorse to cover up her cringe at the memory. Finding out you were dating your brother’s ex was painful enough, but finding it out because the pair of them had bumped into each other at your touch-tank booth at the farmers’ market was downright excruciating. “I didn’t put two and two together, okay?” She passed over the bowl of sauce before Lin could even ask, inhaling the sweet and tangy scent as it too was added to the pan.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How many Lins do you </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Enough,” Kya admitted, stepping up to wrap her arms around Lin’s waist from behind. “But you happen to be my favorite.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She received a “hmpf,” in reply as she pressed a kiss to Lin’s scarred cheek.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They retreated to the couch with a bottle of wine after dinner, Kya sitting criss-cross and Lin lounging comfortably against the arm. The police chief nodded at the open closet on one end of the living room, where Kya’s dive gear was hanging. “You really have six of those things?” she questioned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wetsuits? Yep,” Kya said, popping the ‘p.’ “I need different ones for different situations.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin arched an eyebrow at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m serious! Water gets seriously cold, and those things trap some serious heat. I have to dress for the conditions,” Kya elaborated. “I’ll have you know, they’re all very different from one another.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It appears I wasn’t completely wrong about saying your wardrobe was primarily wetsuit,” Lin mused. “Is there anything you own </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>related to working at Yue?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Glancing around the apartment, Kya had to admit it was a fair question. Miscellaneous supplies took up most of the available space, from tabling supplies that needed touching up to stretchers and feeding tubes she kept meaning to find a space for at the center. A person could hardly walk two feet without kicking something waterproof. “You’re sitting on it,” she admitted after a pause.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And people call me a workaholic!” Lin exclaimed, sending them both into a fit of laughter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few moments, Kya broached the topic that had been weighing on her mind since that afternoon. “So, I couldn’t help but notice you were a bit anxious around Opal earlier,” she ventured carefully. “I’d forgotten you were her aunt.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin’s face immediately fell, but she shrugged as though it was no big deal. “Her mom’s my younger sister.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ve never mentioned a sister, let alone Republic County’s Most Trusted in News,” she pointed out, purposefully rolling her eyes at Suyin Beifong’s self-generated moniker. A good ten years Kya’s junior, she’d been the lead anchor for the county news station for years. Kya had met her several times when she came to visit Opal at the center, and done an interview or two with her. She couldn’t deny the woman was a bit overzealous, but she didn’t seem that evil.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t talk much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“From the sheer awkwardness of that conversation in the rehab yard, I’d say there’s a bit more to it than ‘we don’t talk much,’” Kya coaxed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin sat forward to lean her elbows on her knees, features creasing into a harsh frown. “Okay, fine. We don’t talk at all. I haven’t interacted with Suyin for more than five minutes in close to thirty years. Do we have to go into it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya blinked incredulously. “Wait, you haven’t spoken to your sister in </span>
  <em>
    <span>thirty years</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” When Lin’s shoulders curled up toward her ears and her jaw set even harder than normal, she immediately regretted her shocked outburst.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I haven’t,” Lin confirmed, staring adamantly into her wine. “We had a falling out. Please, just drop it.” If her posture wasn’t enough to prove how much the questions had upset her, her tone certainly sold it. Kya had never heard her voice so tight. In a month of knowing Lin, one thing Kya had picked up was that she was horribly uncomfortable talking about past hurts. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin sighed heavily before turning back to her. “It’s not you.” Kya pulled a face, and she seemed to notice how cliche the statement sounded. “I’m serious. It's not that I don’t want to tell you, and if you’re hurt that I’m not, I will, I just…” she looked down again. Kya’s first instinct was to assure her that she wasn’t upset, but something in Lin’s voice said to let her go on, so she stayed quiet this time. “I’m having a really good time. With you. And talking about it just </span>
  <em>
    <span>ruins</span>
  </em>
  <span> a day for me, and I don’t want to… ruin this. Not that I haven’t already,” she finished dejectedly. Kya felt something in her melt when Lin admitted that she was enjoying herself. She reached forward and rested her hand on Lin’s forearm, and Lin’s gaze flicked up her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There had never been a cause more important than wiping the guilt-ridden expression off of Lin’s face. And Kya would know; she’d championed plenty of causes in her lifetime. She leaned forward slowly and caught the other woman’s lips in a slow kiss. Lin relaxed into it almost immediately. “You didn’t ruin anything,” Kya told her when they drew apart again. She rested her forehead against Lin’s and let herself get sucked into those criminally deep eyes. “If you don’t want to talk about it yet, that’s okay. As long as you know I’ll be here to listen when you do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, Lin didn’t do anything but gaze at Kya with an unreadable expression. And then they were kissing again and Kya couldn’t think of anything but Lin’s chapped lips against her own, the softness of her tongue as it begged entrance into Kya’s mouth, and the absolutely intoxicating taste of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a few heated minutes, the pair of them settled back in next to each other. Kya wiggled happily into the space beneath Lin’s arm, enjoying the strength and security of her hold. absently twined their fingers together. “What was your favorite part of today?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She could feel Lin’s thoughtful hum rumble through her chest. “I forget what it was called,” she admitted. “It was one of the first things I saw, but it was absolutely gorgeous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya craned her neck to get a look at her face. “Where was it?” she asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Near the otters,” Lin recalled.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Badinj!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin shot upright behind her, knocking Kya aside, and promptly choked on her drink. “The </span>
  <em>
    <span>octopus</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” she gasped when she finally caught some breath. “That terrifying little alien? Spirits, no!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, I know you two hit it off! I was starting to worry I had competition,” Kya said, feigning offense and sending Lin into a fit of laughter. Kya laughed with her, unable to resist the way Lin’s eyes crinkled around the corners and the way she bit at her bottom lip out of habit. “Okay, fine, not Badinj,” she relented. “Then what-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin gave a put-out little huff and fell back against the couch again. “Well, I had a whole smooth line planned out about how it was you, but after that accusation, I’m not doing it,” she said, crossing her arms in a pout.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya shot her an innocent look. “I’m sorry I ruined your </span>
  <em>
    <span>smooth </span>
  </em>
  <span>plan,” she teased, reaching for Lin’s near-empty glass and setting it on the coffee table beside her own. That one perfect eyebrow raised again. She shifted toward down the couch until she was hovering close to Lin, practically straddling her lap. Kya watched her face for any sign of discomfort, but Lin looked more curious than anything. “Maybe I can make it up to you?” She asked, her lips barely a breath away from Lin’s own.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh really? And how would you-” Lin’s voice hitched as Kya’s lips found her neck. “How would you go about that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya hummed, taking the time to drink in Lin’s soft sigh before answering. “I have a few ideas.” Emboldened by the way Lin tilted her head back to give her better access, she continued the trail of kisses up toward her ear. She nipped gently at Lin’s earlobe, and Lin nearly jumped out of her skin. Kya pulled back, worried she’d gone too far. “Only if you’re comfortable with them,” she hastened to add.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Aside from their first date, they hadn’t really broached the topic of sex. Lin had made it clear that she wanted- </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed- </span>
  </em>
  <span>to go slow with this, and Kya had been more than content to oblige. Throughout the night, she’d gotten the impression that Lin may have been interested, but now she worried that she’d read the situation wrong. She’d promised Lin that it was okay for a sleepover to be just a sleepover and now here she was pressuring her into more. Kya knew she always jumped into these things too fast, naively throwing her trust in before the other person decided they wanted it, of course this was too soon, she’d shattered the night’s comfortable domesticity and now Lin was going to shut her out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin’s hands fell to her waist, shocking her out of her spiraling thoughts. The younger woman was looking up at her, jade green eyes even more striking than normal when the rest of her face was flushed. Her head tipped to one side in consideration.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Whatever she was looking for in Kya’s expression, she must have found it. The smile that settled across her lips was almost too sweet for how the rest of her looked right now. One hand reached up to tuck Kya’s loose hair behind her ear, then settled against her cheek to pull her in for a dizzyingly slow kiss. “Thank you,” Lin said when she pulled back, stroking her thumb along the skin where Kya’s shirt had ridden up. “I think I’d be interested in hearing those ideas.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It's not in our regularly scheduled programming, but have a little Valentine's/late Lunar New Year treat bc you're all so lovely &lt;3</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Easing out of sleep the next morning, Kya rolled over into the warmth at her side and opened her eyes to find Lin already awake and watching her with a fond expression. Like everything about her, the gaze was intense and unflinching, and Kya found her own face growing warm under the scrutiny. “Morning,” she murmured after a moment.</p><p>“Good morning,” Lin replied. Her voice was husky with sleep. She reached over and tucked a bit of Kya’s hair behind her ear, and for a fleeting moment Kya was self-conscious about what she’d been told in the past was an impressive bed head. The softness in the way Lin trailed her hand down her shoulder and arm after quickly chased her worries away.</p><p>“Did you sleep well?”</p><p>“I did,” Lin said. They sat still for a few more moments, just staring at each other. Kya swept her eyes over Lin’s hair where it lay fanned out across the pillow. Even in the morning, the gunmetal grey waves flowed elegantly. She couldn’t help but remember how the thick, almost coarse strands had felt in her hands the night before. “Thank you,” Lin whispered, pulling her out of her reverie.</p><p>Kya frowned, confused. “What for?”</p><p>Lin reached up again to run a finger over the furrow between Kya’s brows, smoothing it out. “For last night. For going slow with me.” She paused for a moment, and a current of sadness swept through her eyes, but it faded into almost fascination as she continued tracing Kya’s features. “Not everyone is so understanding, but you… You make me feel…” she blushed and looked down at the space between them. “I saw you get worried last night and I just wanted to tell you that I see it. What you’re doing, to try and make me feel comfortable. And I do. So, just. Thank you. For being so patient.”</p><p>Kya took a deep breath and resolutely reminded herself that it was too early to start crying. “Lin,” she breathed, reaching up and covering her hand with her own. The gratefulness in Lin’s eyes when she looked back up was as overwhelming as reassurance that her fears about pushing were unfounded. She’d always made it a point to conduct herself in a way that made those around her comfortable, it was just part of who she was, but she couldn’t remember the last time someone had so explicitly thanked her for doing it. That Lin was the one to do so somehow made it all the more profound.</p><p>Not for the first time, Kya wondered who hurt this incredible woman. Who ever could have been <em> willing </em>to. “You’re welcome,” she said, because anything else felt like it would invalidate what Lin had told her. “Thank you for telling me. I know I tend to come on strong, and I’ve been nervous about rushing you-”</p><p>Lin immediately started shaking her head. “Don’t be. You’re-”</p><p>Kya continued over her protest. “It means a lot that you took the time to acknowledge that. And it helps to know that I’m not.” She leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss against Lin’s lips, one that she eagerly accepted and returned. Kya almost let herself fall to distraction over it before she remembered the time. She pulled back just far enough to kiss the tip of Lin’s nose. Lin’s face scrunched up in consternation over the act and Kya laughed out loud at her. “As much as I’d love to lay here and just cuddle all day, we may want to get going. Especially if you want to stop at your place to change,” she pointed out, rolling over and pushing herself to her feet.</p><p>Despite the fact that they had managed to wrangle the morning off, they were both too important to be able to escape for the full day without extensive notice. And since their days off didn’t line up, they’d decided to plan their day at the Center for Lin’s rather than Kya’s. At the time, it had seemed like the best course of action, but she couldn’t help but regret it now.</p><p>Lin heaved a heavy sigh. “I suppose you’re right. I doubt it would be appreciated if I showed up to the station in civvies.” She pushed herself up on her elbows and then into sitting up, and Kya watched appreciatively as she did.</p><p>“Besides, you got to see my apartment. It’s only fair that I get to see where the great Chief Lin Beifong lives,” she pointed out with a grin. Lin rolled her eyes, huffing once more that it really wasn’t that big a deal as they got dressed and got ready for the day. After a quick breakfast, they were off, taking Lin’s car once again since Kya had left her truck at Yue. Kya watched out the window with interest as they wound their way into one of the smaller seaside districts, and raised her eyebrows when they pulled up to the security gate of a neighborhood she’d known existed but had only visited a handful of times.</p><p>“When you have a job like mine, you start to value the extra security,” Lin explained sheepishly when she gave her a mockingly impressed look.</p><p>The realization hit Kya like a bucket of cold water. Lin’s job wasn’t just important, it was dangerous, even off the clock. She knew crime rates in Republic City were relatively low, in large part thanks to Lin herself, but it still made sense that someone in her position would have enemies. “I’ll bet,” she said softly.</p><p>“Oh, please don’t worry about it,” Lin exclaimed, glancing at her. “I doubt that anything would actually happen, I just like to be careful.”</p><p>Kya was about to respond, but lost her comment when Lin pulled into the first driveway on a street just off the main thoroughfare. The house wasn’t particularly large, but it was certainly bigger than her apartment, and from what Kya could see, it was on the water. “You been holding out on me, Beifong?” She questioned.</p><p>Lin chuckled nervously as they stepped out of the car. “Not on purpose,” she pointed out. “Maybe if your truck didn’t strike me as a rolling death trap, I’d have made you come pick me up a few times.” There was no heat in her teasing. Lin had been the one driving to nearly everything they’d done together, though Kya had a bit of an inkling her truck wasn’t the only reason for it. The police chief just automatically stepped into that position.</p><p>“I’ll have you know, she’s in complete truck health,” she said haughtily. “Just because she has character-”</p><p>“Is that what they’re calling it these days?” Lin interrupted dryly. Kya didn’t bother arguing further, overcome by curiosity as Lin unlocked and swung open the door. There was no real entryway, the house immediately opening up into a spacious area that functioned as a living room, dining room, and kitchen all in one. The space was sparsely equipped and knowing Lin, Kya would have bet the entirety of her wallet that it had come furnished. But evidence of the police chief was everywhere, as well; it was in the single framed photo of Lin and what looked like a few of the officers from that first training, in the nearly-empty jar of pretzels on the end table, in the glint of a rather high-end voice-activated speaker beside the television. “Lin, it’s lovely,” she said in disbelief. She stopped to examine a series of three paintings along one wall, a composite scene of a tranquil-looking forest.</p><p>She started by exploring the only hallway, surreptitiously glancing back at Lin every few minutes to make sure she was okay with Kya’s snooping. Busy in the kitchen putting away a rack of dried dishes, she didn’t seem to mind in the least. The farthest room looked like a guest room, about as stark as the rest of the house, but Kya also found a well-lit office space lined with books on two of the walls. She was curious about the titles, but not knowing if Lin had any confidential work out on the desk, she resolved to investigate later and hurried back out to the living room.</p><p>“That’s it, I live here now,” she declared, throwing herself flat on the couch. “I’m not leaving. You’re stuck with me.” She reached up to tug the blanket sitting on the back of the couch down and buried her face in the luxurious softness of it. There were a handful more folded in a crate beside the opposite couch, and one in a pile on the armchair. It said something Kya didn’t quite know that stoic Lin Beifong had an extensive collection of fluffy blankets, but she could already imagine the pair of them bundling up underneath one on a chilly day.</p><p>She heard a laugh from the kitchen. “I don’t think I’d call it ‘stuck with you,’ but it’s nice to know you approve.” The statement was almost warmer than the blanket. Kya pulled it off her face to smile at her and one of the large picture windows caught her eye.</p><p>“Is that you- Spirits, look at your <em> yard </em> !” She jumped up off the couch and raced to the patio door. The outdoor space wasn’t particularly large, but it was well-organized with a patio table, pool, and set of brick steps leading down to a short dock along a canal. “Lin, <em> you don’t have a boat </em>!”</p><p>Lin stepped outside behind her, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Is it silly that I just really liked the view?” She asked sheepishly. Kya glanced out at the water, seeing the canal end not far off by dumping into the bay. Her mind’s eye conjured up a picture of Lin, morning coffee in hand, sitting in one of the wooden chairs there and watching the morning mist rise off the water. For just a moment, the anxiousness crept up in the back of her mind again. Was thinking that way too forward? She was literally seeing Lin’s house for the first time and already thinking of how nice her plant collection would look against the wood fence. <em> Don’t, </em> she reminded herself. <em> Lin told you already, she’s okay with how you’re acting. She even said not to call it ‘stuck with you.’ </em></p><p>To combat the feeling, she stepped back and wrapped an arm around Lin’s waist. “I don’t think it’s silly at all. I think you’re a genius.” Lin smiled and laid her head against her shoulder. Yep, Kya could definitely see herself getting used to this space.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Though Kya had been kidding about an immediate immigration to Lin’s house, but two weeks later, it was a close thing. Her truck had a space beside Lin’s car, her toothbrush stayed almost permanently on the bathroom counter, and a box of her favorite tea had appeared on the counter as a surprise one morning. One of her wetsuits was currently hanging out to dry on the patio. She hopped out of her truck in the graying evening light, bounding up to the front door and startling when she found it locked. Kya frowned. Lin’s car was in the driveway and the window shades were open, so she was clearly home. After a few rounds of knocking, she gave in and pulled out her keys.</p><p>Lin had given her a spare key early on, a small gesture that spoke volumes for the painfully private woman. Kya had yet to use it, mostly out of respect for that privacy and because Lin always left the door open for her, but this time her instincts told her something wasn’t right. She let herself inside, calling out for Lin but not too loud on the off-chance she was asleep. The obvious places- kitchen, living room, office- were all empty, and Kya was about to head toward Lin’s bedroom when she caught a glimpse of her in the window.</p><p>Lin was sitting in one of the chairs out on the dock, slumped forward with her elbows on her knees. She appeared to be looking out toward the bay. Kya opened the patio door and stepped outside, but got no reaction. “Lin?” she called when she got closer.</p><p>By the way she jumped, it was clear Lin hadn’t heard her approach. “Kya! I must have lost track of time-” She started to stand, but Kya waved her off.</p><p>“Don’t get up,” she said quickly, dropping into the chair beside Lin. “Is something wrong?”</p><p>Lin sighed and let her head fall forward again. “It’s not really anything, just a… a rough day at work,” she admitted.</p><p>Kya sent her a sympathetic look and reached out to cover her hand with her own. “Can you talk about it?”</p><p>Lin hesitated for a moment, thinking it over but clearly torn. “The case is closed,” she said slowly. “I’m just… I mean, you know, I’m not that great at… whatever you call it.”</p><p>“I’d call it ‘talking about your feelings,’” she teased gently, trying to lighten Lin’s mood a bit. “What happened on the case? Start there.”</p><p>“Car wreck. Drunk driver hit a teen in a Kia head-on and the kid didn’t make it,” Lin stated bluntly. Kya rubbed her thumb over her knuckles.</p><p>“That’s awful,” she said. There wasn’t much else <em> to </em>say about something like that.</p><p>Lin nodded and took a deep breath. “It’s not that abnormal a situation, but the kid… I had to tell his family. It shook up some old memories, is all.” She kept her focus on the bay as she spoke, eyes fixed on something that probably wasn’t there. Kya could practically see a scene playing out in her mind, and she tried to reconcile respecting Lin’s boundaries with being desperate to know what had made her look so haunted.</p><p>“Were you in a car accident?” She asked tentatively, when it became clear that Lin wasn’t going to continue the explanation on her own.</p><p>“Car wreck,” the police chief corrected immediately. Kya would have been lying if she said she understood the semantics, but it didn’t seem like the time to ask. “I… yeah, same situation, when I was twenty-two. That’s where I-” She cut herself off by waving a hand in the vague direction of her right cheek. When she looked at the jagged pair of scars there, Kya could see Lin’s jaw working the way it always did when she wanted a conversation to end sooner than later.</p><p>She decided to risk one more question before changing the subject and sparing Lin further stress. “How bad was it?” It was a broad enough question that Lin could give as much or as little detail as she wanted.</p><p>Lin’s hand moved to hold onto Kya’s, taking her by surprise. “I don’t remember a ton, just hazy bits and pain.” Kya’s stomach sank as she imagined Lin in that situation, hurt and confused with two fresh gaping slashes across her much-younger face. “I ended up in the hospital for two weeks, but I lucked out and kept the eye.”</p><p>“I’m sorry that happened,” Kya said honestly. “And that you’re having to remember it like this.”</p><p>Lin raised an eyebrow at her. “I’d hardly call it your fault, but thank you,” she said in a weak attempt at a joke. When it didn’t quite land, she sighed again. “Poor kid’s parents. Just makes you think…” Whatever the thought was, she didn’t say, her eyes going distant. After a beat, she shook herself and looked up at Kya with a small smile. “Anyway, enough about me. Why don’t we head inside and make dinner, and you can tell me about your day? How’s Ryokan doing?”</p><p>They stood, and Kya pulled Lin into her side so they could make their way back to the house with their arms wrapped around each other’s waists, and launched into an enthusiastic recount of that day’s antics at the center.</p><p>Dinner was a simple affair, and rather than stay up talking or watching, they found themselves getting ready for bed rather early. Lin had shed most of her gloom, but Kya could still catch the faraway look that came across her face when she thought Kya wasn’t looking. She seemed to relax a bit more when they settled into bed beside each other. Kya curled up behind her and told herself not to keep pushing.</p><p>She wasn’t sure how much later it was when she woke up alone. The light was out in the ensuite, but the bedroom door was open. Kya quietly made her way into the living room in search of her wayward girlfriend. She found Lin standing in front of the window. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, almost hugging herself, and her shoulders bore the same slump as earlier as she stared out into the darkness.</p><p>“Couldn’t sleep?”</p><p>Lin’s eyes flickered up to see Kya’s reflection, and she quickly turned around. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”<br/>Kya shook her head. “You didn’t.” Considering Lin for a long moment and coming to the conclusion she wouldn’t speak first, she offered, “Was it the crash?”</p><p>Lin shrugged. “Just a crazy dream, and I... I didn’t want to wake you,” she repeated.</p><p>“I wish you would have,” Kya told her honestly. She reached out to rest her hand on the scarred side of Lin’s face and brushed her thumb over that high cheekbone. Lin startled at the contact but didn’t pull away. “You know, you don’t have to hide when you’re upset.”</p><p>"I know that,” she admitted, averting her gaze. “But it’s my problem, you don’t have to lose sleep over it.”</p><p>"What if I want to?"</p><p>Lin blinked at her, uncomprehending. Kya used the hand on her cheek to draw her in for a kiss, and when that ended she wrapped her arms around her. Lin all but melted into the embrace. The difference in their heights left her face tucked perfectly into Kya’s collarbone. The pair of them fit together like cogs in a clock, spinning separately and entwined all at once, in perfect rhythm.</p><p>"You never think less of me for asking for help, or complaining about work,” Kya said, tightening her hold to make sure Lin was listening. “Please believe me when I say I would never think less of you."</p><p>She felt Lin give a silent exhale before the younger woman pressed herself even closer. "I love you." The words were small, barely a murmur, and hesitant enough that Kya could tell she was waiting to be rejected.</p><p>"I love you too," she replied immediately, unwilling to give Lin even a second to think she didn’t mean it. Hearing those words from Lin felt the same as standing on the bow of a boat as it raced on full plane across the water- a rush, bubbling up from the tips of her toes and expanding in her chest until she felt like she could jump overboard and sprint across the waves herself. Saying them back felt like coming up for air after the deepest dive she could manage.</p><p>Kya wondered for a moment if she had ever been in a relationship where she wasn’t the first one to say “I love you,” and decided the answer was no. That Lin had taken that step without any prompting seemed like the ultimate proof that she was as comfortable in the relationship as Kya was. She breathed in the scent of Lin’s hair and questioned for a moment how she had managed to live for so long without her. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>That morning, when Kya had invited her to stop by and see Ryo after work as a way to cheer her up, it had seemed like a romantic idea. Looking back, Lin wished she had remembered that she would have to spend all day reviewing case reports for the very car wreck that had triggered her bad mood. By the time she left, she’d wanted nothing more than to curl up with a cup of coffee and close her eyes, just for a moment. It was bad enough that she nearly called Kya to cancel, but the idea of being alone with her thoughts had been equally unappealing.</p><p>Thankfully, the rehab yard hadn’t been all that busy. Kya had said something about a sea turtle release, which had taken a decent portion of the normal volunteers off-site. They’d been able to chat for a few moments, and Lin had watched as Ryokan was fed his evening meal. She always appreciated seeing Kya at work, and the young dolphin’s antics <em> had </em>helped lighten the anvil that seemed draped across her shoulders. But she was still exhausted, and found herself getting agitated as she waited for Kya to finish up cleaning the kitchen so that they could leave, to the point where even the sounds of traffic from the nearby highway were making her flinch when they grew too loud.</p><p>Well, there was probably a good reason that those sounds were putting her on edge. It was a constant reminder that no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t keep Republic City safe from everything. Stupid people were still going to make shitty decisions, and innocent people would still get hurt because of it, and days like this, she was all-too-familiar with that kind of pain. She rubbed at her forehead and willed the image of the boy’s mother’s expression out of her mind’s eye, adamantly refusing to let herself wonder if her own mother would have looked that upset. If maybe <em> that </em>would have gotten a reaction out of her.</p><p>“Um. Hi.” Lin looked up with an annoyed huff to see what moron had decided she looked approachable right now. Her stomach fell to the ground when she saw a too-familiar face standing in front of her. “Are you alright? You looked like you had a headache; I have some ibuprofen in my bag.”</p><p>She blinked hard and reminded herself that the awkward teen was Opal, not Su. It should have been obvious; not only had it been more than thirty years since either of them were teenagers, but Su had never looked awkward a day in her life. She’d never have been twisting her hands together or biting her lip the way her daughter currently was.</p><p>Lin narrowed her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said flatly, hoping the girl would drop it.</p><p>“Oh. Ok.” Her high voice grated on Lin’s nerves almost as much as the screeching tires. She could feel herself getting more angry by the second, her skin too warm and muscles locking up tight. She knew, logically, she had no reason to feel that way toward Opal, but the fact was getting harder and harder to remember the longer the teen hovered around. </p><p>“Spit it out,” Lin finally growled, sensing Opal had more to say.</p><p>“I… I noticed that you’ve been hanging around the Center sometimes, now that you’re dating Kya, and I was wondering if maybe you wanted to, um… talk sometime? I grew up hearing a lot about you from my mom and Grandma Toph and I’ve always wanted to meet you, and I was hoping maybe you’d want to get to know me a bit, too?”</p><p>Lin frowned at her. That Su and Toph would have told this kid anything that would make her interested in talking to Lin was almost laughable. She was surprised Opal even knew who she was, some days, unless… Of course. “No. And you can tell your mother I don’t appreciate her putting you up to this, either.”</p><p>The teenager reeled back a bit. “I- Mom didn’t- I didn’t tell her that you…” She swallowed hard, and Lin glared as she picked up what smelled like a lie. “I know you don’t want a lot to do with our family, and I know we’re loud and overwhelming, but I thought-”</p><p>“Not. Interested,” Lin ground out through her teeth.</p><p>“-maybe, if I had a chance to-”</p><p>Lin physically felt the snap as her patience ran out. “<em> I said no! </em>” She shouted. “What part of that can you not understand?”</p><p>Opal’s eyes were as wide as saucers, wet with crocodile tears. “I- I’m sor-”<br/>“Get out of here before I arrest you for harassment!”</p><p>“Lin!” She looked up as Kya came around the corner at the same time as Opal threw her hands over her face and ran off. “What is wrong with you?” Her girlfriend demanded.</p><p>Lin turned and flung her car door open. “Are you ready to go or not?”</p><p>Kya scowled, but seemed to know better than to argue as she got in on the passenger side. The ride back to Lin’s house was spent in tense silence as neither woman seemed willing to broach the subject in such close quarters. Other than an explosive sigh and the continued presence of the deep frown, Kya gave no indication of what she was thinking. By the time they parked, Lin had convinced herself that she most definitely did not feel guilty about what had transpired, and that maybe Kya would just let it go, but she was proven wrong when she stormed into the house well before Lin.</p><p>“So are we going to talk about this?” the veterinarian asked, crossing her arms and blatantly blocking the way into the bedroom. </p><p>Lin glared at the ground as she made her way to the kitchen, dumping her keys on the counter and pouring out her water bottle. “What do you want to say?” She questioned.</p><p>“Lin, you <em> cannot </em>go around snapping at my volunteers like that. You were completely out of line!”</p><p>She gripped the bottle with white knuckles and scrubbed furiously at it with the dish sponge. “She’s my niece. I can say whatever I want.”</p><p>“You made the poor girl cry!” Ky cried indignantly.</p><p>“Then she should have listened the first time,” Lin snapped, throwing her water bottle down in frustration. Water splashed up out of the sink when she did, soaking the bottom half of her shirt. “Fuck!” She shut off the sink and dabbed at the spot uselessly with a dish towel. All she had wanted to do was lay down and take a fucking break, to not have to explain herself or her behavior for five fucking minutes, and the world- or more importantly Kya- seemed intent on stopping her.</p><p>Kya made a disbelieving sound and spluttered for a moment. Lin continued furiously rubbing at her shirt, not sure why she was even trying when she could just as easily toss it in the dryer and throw on a new one. <em> If only Kya knew half of what she was talking about </em> . “Look, I know you’ve had a hard week but that does <em> not </em>give you the right-”</p><p>As she listened, Lin could feel her ears grow cottony with anger, her girlfriend’s voice seeming farther away than it was. Her face felt hot, and her eyes stung. She threw the towel onto the counter and her hands up in the air. <em> “It was Su, okay?” </em>She shouted, storming toward the living room when the kitchen suddenly felt too small. </p><p>Kya stilled for a moment before her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “What was Su?”</p><p>Lin immediately regretted saying anything, but she also knew that there was no backing out now. <em> You don’t have to do this alone </em> , she reminded herself. <em> She said she wants to know. </em> She balled her her hands into tight fists and spat the words out before she could chicken out. “The car wreck. It was Su.”</p><p>When she finally looked back at Kya, her face had become unreadable. She studied Lin for a long moment before turning on her heel and storming into the laundry room. For a moment, Lin panicked at the thought that she could actually be leaving, but she returned almost immediately with a full laundry basket on her hip. She slammed it down on the couch in front of Lin. “Fold,” she ordered, grabbing a pair of jeans off the top.<br/>“What?” Lin questioned, unable to follow. Was Kya trying to tell her to stuff it, in some kind of passive-aggressive-but-still-productive way?</p><p>“You always try to hedge out of these conversations when you get overwhelmed, and I’ve let you, but Opal is one of my kids and so this involves me, too. You’re going to give me the full story and you’re going to occupy your hands while you talk so you don’t shut down.” Lin made a derisive sound in the back of her throat, absolutely not believing what she was hearing. Kya sent her a warning look, though, so she begrudgingly picked up a t-shirt. “Now, what the fuck happened between you and your sister?”</p><p>Lin glared at the laundry basket. "Tenzin didn’t tell you anything?" she asked skeptically. She didn’t know whether she was surprised or not when Kya shook her head in the negative. Her ex wasn’t exactly a gossip, but slip ups happened and to be honest, she wouldn’t have blamed Kya for asking him. It wasn’t specifically a secret, either. She just didn’t enjoy advertising the day her life had fallen apart. </p><p>Turning back to the laundry in her hands, she sighed heavily. The anger she’d been clinging to for an hour seemed to slip through her hands like sand, leaving nothing but the familiar weariness this story always brought. "Growing up in Gaoling, it was just me, my mom and Su. There’s six years between her and I." She stopped to set aside the shirt she’d finished. "Mom was the chief of police there, so I basically raised us. Su hated it.”</p><p>Another shirt went into the pile, and Lin had to admit that Kya was right. Being able to do something with her hands while she spoke helped keep some distance between herself and the memories, and it gave her an excuse not to watch Kya’s reactions. “When she was seventeen, I got a phone call from a friend of hers saying she was absolutely trashed at a party. It wasn’t that shocking; she had a rebellious streak eight miles wide. They put her on, and I told her to stay right where she was and I’d come get her. I told her there would be no questions asked, that I’d never even bring it up again. I just didn’t want her to get hurt. She made it very clear that she didn’t want help from her square older sister. I told the friends to keep her there and went anyway. And her friends were useless, so Su got in her car anyway. We met halfway when she hit me head-on on a two-lane road."</p><p>Kya had gone still, and out of the corner of her eye Lin could see her reach for her hand before stopping herself. She continued folding and talking. "Su wasn’t hurt too bad. Drunk people usually aren’t."</p><p>"And you ended up in the hospital for two weeks,” Kya recalled.</p><p>Lin nodded at her. "Mom made the whole thing go away, which was fucked up for so many reasons," she added bitterly. The sting of disappointment still cut her to the quick thirty years later. Before then, she’d been so sure her Mom wasn’t <em> that kind of cop </em>. "But I guess Su’s life wasn’t ruined. Mom got on her case, and Su shaped up for a few weeks, but it didn’t last. I came home one day to find her drunk on the couch with two friends. I flipped out, because why wouldn’t I? And who comes out of the kitchen but my own mother, telling me I’m overreacting. Overreacting to a drunk sister who had just-" She cut herself off by angrily putting down another finished pair of leggings. "Anyway. I enrolled in the police academy here and moved out a week later. Haven’t really talked to Su since." It was true. The handful of times she’d had to interact with her sister had been strictly professional, usually at a conference or some city event. Su had tried reaching out a few times, but Lin hadn’t let herself listen to the voicemails too often. At this point, Su even knew better than to attempt to get an interview with Lin herself- one of them always had to send in a junior.</p><p>Kya was still watching her with those big, sad eyes. Lin reached out and picked up her hand, now that the story was done, and felt a gentle squeeze on her fingers. For some reason, that was what finally put tears in Lin’s eyes over an incident she told herself she’d gotten over ages ago. "Your mom?" Kya asked.</p><p>"A few times. Never for long."</p><p>"And neither of them ever-?"</p><p>"Apologized? No. Beifongs don’t do that," Lin admitted, the words like acid in her mouth.</p><p>Kya squeezed her hand again. "That doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve one."</p><p>Lin was silent for a moment, turning the words over in her head. The familiar weight of guilt lodged itself behind her tongue. “I shouldn’t have yelled at Opal, I know,” she eventually said. “But she kept asking and I’ve had to read reports of the case from every angle this week and she <em> looks </em>so much like Su…” She trailed off when her throat threatened to close up, reaching up with her free hand to cover her scars as she grimaced, index finger and thumb pressing against her temples. Despite her every effort, she felt a tear escape.</p><p>There was a long moment when Kya stayed quiet, and Lin braced herself for the lecture she considered inevitable. <em> You just screamed at one of her friends, you should be able to handle a stupid car crash at work by now instead of letting your emotions get the better of you. </em></p><p>She suddenly found herself pulled forward into Kya’s arms. “You’re apologizing to Opal the next time you’re both at Yue,” Kya told her firmly. “She’s a good kid, and something tells me if she’d known about this she wouldn’t have kept asking.” That said, she rested her cheek against Lin’s head the way she had the night before, holding her just as gentle and just as close. Lin hardly dared to breathe for fear of pushing her away. “I’m sorry you’re having to deal with all this, but thank you for telling me. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way by Su or your mother, and I can’t imagine how it must feel to be confronted with it again after so long. I meant what I said- I’m right here to talk if you need to, or to just sit. I’m not going to let you deal with all of this alone.”</p><p>The tears had stopped prickling at her eyes, but Lin allowed herself to sink into the comfort she’d needed all day. She didn’t say much more, drained from such an emotional conversation, and Kya didn’t ask her to. The pains of Lin’s work and past, at least for now, stood aside to let her be.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Shorter than average, but I suppose enjoy the fluff for now. Also, in case anyone's wondering or looking for bonus features, I'm whattheflameo on tumblr, too ;)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kya stepped out of the airport doors and immediately had to shrug out of her heavy coat. She’d worn it to save space in her suitcase, but unlike Harbor City, Republic City’s warm air made it unbearable. As she did, she scanned the pickup lanes until she could make out Korra’s red Outback pulling up to the curb. She set her coat and suitcase in the backseat and jumped into the passenger side before the attendants could give them a hard time.</p><p>“Welcome back!” Korra greeted cheerfully.</p><p>“Thanks! And thanks for the lift,” Kya replied.</p><p>“I’d say anytime, but you know there’s a fee involved,” she said in a mock-serious tone, pulling out into traffic.</p><p>Kya rolled her eyes. “<em> Yes </em>, I brought you the sweet rolls,” she said, reaching into her messenger bag and pulling out the bag of snacks. Korra whooped excitedly beside her.</p><p>“And just because I’m amazing, I brought some materials I thought you’d enjoy,” Kya continued, fishing out a small stack of papers. “It’s a bunch of random things, but there was a really good presentation on bottlenose whales that I think might help with your manuscript, so I grabbed a copy of that flyer and took notes. And a card from a guy who had a poster on facial recognition and association in octopuses; I figured you could reach out to him about your Badinj project,” she added with a put-upon sigh, still unable to understand Korra’s obsession with the octopus when they had so many amazing, adorable marine mammals at the center. “Oh, and there was a table giving out these tiny dry bags, and they were adorable so I grabbed you and Asami each one, too.”</p><p>Korra glanced over excitedly and Kya reached out to push her into looking back at the road. “Did you know you are literally the best?” The younger woman asked. “As in literally the best person in the history of ever.”</p><p>Kya chuckled fondly as she reached behind her to set the goodies on the backseat. “I do try,” she admitted. “You know where you’re going? Earthshore?” She was going straight to Lin’s house, seeing as the majority of her belongings were there anyway. She’d taken a few moments in her hotel room to be excited about the idea and the knowledge that really, her apartment had become more of a formality than anything.</p><p>“Yeah, yeah, one of ‘Sami’s friends lives there,” Korra said. “Before you can ask, Ryo is doing just fine. Scared me a bit when he ignored breakfast the first day you were gone, but he must’ve just been in a bad mood because he inhaled lunch and dinner that day.”</p><p>Kya frowned and sat up straighter. Not eating was typically a sign of a much larger problem, especially if it was starting this far into Ryokan’s rehabilitation. “Was it capelin? He doesn’t-”</p><p>“Do you genuinely think I don’t know that he doesn’t like capelin by now?” Korra asked, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “Of course we didn’t give it to him. It happened for <em> one </em>meal on the very first day you were gone. His labs have all been normal and nothing else has changed. I told you, he was probably just in a pissy mood.”</p><p>“You’re right, you’re right,” she sighed. “I just get worried.”</p><p>Korra snorted. “You? Never.”</p><p>They spent the rest of the ride chatting amicably about what she had missed at the Center and other things Kya had seen and done that week. She had genuinely wished she could bring Korra with her, seeing as the conference had been in their shared hometown, but there was no one else Kya trusted enough to leave in charge of the Center. And since Kya had been invited to speak, there hadn’t been the option of sending Korra alone. The grad student had been an admirably good sport about it, though, so Kya had splurged on the best Harbor City rolls in the city. She didn’t bother acknowledging the fact that she probably would have done so anyway.</p><p>When they pulled up to Lin’s community, Kya gave Korra the gate code and the street name before bending to gather up her things.</p><p>“Hey, looks like your cop’s home after all,” Korra pointed out. Kya looked up and blinked in surprise when she saw Lin’s car in the driveway beside her truck. The police chief had said she probably wouldn’t be home until eight, which was why she hadn’t been the one to pick her up from the airport. Kya couldn’t help but smile a bit as Korra pulled into the driveway.</p><p>“Oh <em> gross </em>, you look all sappy,” the young woman complained. “Get out of my car before you get cooties all over it.”</p><p>Excited at the prospect of seeing Lin, Kya jumped out of the car without making a quip about how ridiculous Korra and Asami had been early in their relationship. She snagged her things from the back and rushed up the front walk. Apparently Lin was as happy to see her as she was to see Lin, because the door opened before she could even reach it. Kya dropped everything she was carrying and ran at her, throwing her arms around Lin’s neck in a hug that would have tackled anyone else. Lin remained completely steady, hardly bothered by Kya’s weight, and waved one arm as Korra pulled away. Knowing Lin was uncomfortable with public displays, she waited until the car had turned at the end of the road before pulling her into a deep kiss. Lin leaned up into it with enthusiasm.</p><p>“I thought you weren’t going to be home!” Kya exclaimed when they separated.</p><p>Lin picked up Kya’s suitcase and coat and started for the door. “We had a slow day, and I got enough done that I figured I’d come surprise you,” she explained.</p><p>When they made it inside, they were immediately assaulted by an incredible smell. Kya’s jaw fell open when she took in the ingredients for pad thai set across the counter. “Oh my- Lin, <em> how early did you leave? </em>”</p><p>“Early enough,” Lin said, in a way that made Kya suspect that she’d put more thought into sneaking out than she was letting on. “It’s almost ready, I just have to stir fry it all together. Why don’t you hop in the shower? I know travel always makes me feel gross.”</p><p>Kya could have kissed her. She <em> did </em>kiss her, realizing there was absolutely nothing stopping her, and hurried off toward the bathroom to wash off the airplane grime.</p><p>By the time she had finished and returned, Lin had already set their plates out on the table. She was standing behind what had become Kya’s chair with an air of fake formality, and Kya took the cue to allow her to push her chair in. “Why thank you.”</p><p>“My pleasure,” Lin replied, bending to kiss her on the cheek before heading around to her own seat.</p><p>“So,” Kya said after her first bite of noodles. “How did your lunch with Opal go?”</p><p>Lin shrugged noncommittally, using her chopsticks to poke at her food for a moment. After a few days to calm down and give the topic some thought, and with a bit of encouragement from Kya, Lin had come to the Center to apologize to Opal and invite her out to lunch so that they could get to know each other a bit better. “It was nice,” she admitted, a small smile on her face. “She seems like a good kid.”</p><p>Kya reached over to squeeze her hand. “She is. I’m glad you two got to finally talk.”</p><p>“And I’m glad I went,” Lin agreed. “We talked about her school a lot, seems she fits right in with your lot, with the ocean-weather-ology thing or whatever.” Kya couldn’t help but laugh at her attempt to describe Opal’s climatology major. Lin really was trying. “I’d… I’d like to get to know her more. Maybe talk to some of the other kids, sometime down the line. But I know what it’ll come with, and I… don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”</p><p>“That’s understandable,” Kya said.</p><p>“Oh! I got you something!” Lin said, jumping up and disappearing into her office. Kya watched her walk away and took a sip of her drink, smiling fondly. She took a moment to look around, taking in the amazing smell of the food and the familiarity of the room around her, and how warm it felt to have somewhere- <em> someone- </em>to come home to. When Lin came out, her arms were tucked behind her back, and there was a shy smile on her face. “It’s a little dumb, but I was at working security at this craft fair thing and I saw it and I thought of you, and I know your birthday’s on Sunday so I figured… Well. Here.”</p><p>She quickly set a small stuffed animal down on the table in front of Kya and all but jumped back, wringing her hands nervously. Kya took a moment to send her a look that she hoped showed how touched she was at the gesture, and at the fact that Lin actually remembered her birthday, before she even looked at the gift.</p><p>When she did look down, her heart all but burst and she felt a growing smile that she couldn’t even try to contain. The plush was a small whale, about the size of a football, with an adorable level of detailing. Despite the obvious creative license the creator took, Kya could immediately tell what it was meant to be. “Lin, oh my gosh, he’s adorable!” She exclaimed. She picked it up and brought it close to her face, dinner all but forgotten as she turned the stuffed animal over in her hands and traced the embroidered line of its mouth. “<em> Look </em> at him!”</p><p>Lin looked relieved as she dropped back into the chair across from Kya. “I’ve been looking at it for three days,” she said. “The person who made it said it was a right whale, I think? Spirits know I don’t know.”</p><p>“He is! His mouth is perfect, see how it curves up and down like a great big frown? And <em> look </em> he’s got <em> callosities </em>!” She said, reaching over to show Lin the small, tannish beads sewn onto the whale’s head.</p><p>She glanced up at Lin’s face to see whether she was looking, and instead caught Lin staring at her with a grin she could only describe as dopey. Kya blushed as she realized she’d been rambling. But she also knew that was the thing with Lin- even when she was just humoring Kya’s enthusiasm, she was genuinely listening. Despite all of the information Kya had already dumped on her about the conference, she was still happy to learn more. “And what, pray tell, are callosities?” She asked, leaning to rest her cheek in one hand as Kya launched into an explanation.</p><p>“They’re basically calluses on right whales’ heads that become home to parasitic crustaceans. The callosities themselves form before the whale is even born, and the crustaceans come later, but we’re not sure if there’s really any effect on the whale. You see, right whales are super endangered, because they were the primary target for whaling, so we don’t know a ton about them.” She broke off to hug the whale tight, resting her head against its soft grey back. “Thank you, Lin. I love him. So much.”</p><p>Lin’s face lit up. “I’m glad.” The police chief stood up and began collecting their empty plates, waving off Kya’s immediate protest. “You’ve had a long week. I can clean up.” </p><p>Trying to at least not be idle as she did, Kya pulled her suitcase into the bedroom, beginning to pull out the clothes she had dirtied on the trip before deciding to just dump everything into the hamper. Being shoved in among the dirty laundry had probably dirtied the things she didn’t wear, anyway, she figured, so what point would there be in folding it and putting it all away? After that, all that was left was her messenger bag, which now only held a carefully sealed cardboard shoebox and another pack of rolls she had picked up to share with Lin. She gathered those and the empty suitcase up, rolled the latter to where it belonged in the guest room closet, and made her way back to the kitchen. She set the box down on the counter and opened the rolls. “I brought treats,” she declared, causing Lin to glance back from her place at the sink. Kya took a bite of one of the sweet rolls, savoring the taste before bouncing toward Lin and holding it in front of her mouth. Lin took a bite and her eyebrows shot up in appreciation not a moment later. Well-brought-up as she was, she refused to speak with her mouth full, but once she had finished she exclaimed, “Spirits, these are really good, what are they?”</p><p>“Harbor City rolls,” Kya told her, somewhat smug. She’d known the rolls would be a hit with the sweet tooth her girlfriend adamantly claimed she didn’t have. She gave over the rest of the treat when Lin opened her mouth to demand more. “They were my favorites growing up.”</p><p>Lin nodded thoughtfully as she finished with the dishes, setting the last one in the drying tray. “What’s in the box?” She asked.</p><p>“Not more sweets, if that’s what you’re after,” Kya teased, earning herself an unimpressed look. “It was a gift from a friend of my mother’s.” She removed the shoebox lid and carefully pulled back the butcher paper lining it to remove a bubble-wrapped object. Lin crossed the kitchen to rest her chin on Kya’s shoulder, watching curiously as she unwrapped the figurine. Kya smiled to see that the carving had made it undamaged, its smooth surface glinting in the kitchen light. Two gray whales, a mother and calf, sat balanced on a rougher base, their tails frozen mid-stroke as though swimming through the empty space around them. The calf was curled over the mother’s back in a pose that Kya had witnessed a hundred times in a hundred different species. The detail across the two, from the grooves in their throats to the texture of their flukes, was expertly rendered.</p><p>“It’s beautiful,” Lin murmured beside her, gently trailing a finger across the mother’s sleek back. “Your mom’s friend made this?”</p><p>Kya nodded. “I was raised with him as basically my uncle. He’s been making whalebone carvings like this for longer than I’ve been alive, said he’d made it when he learned that I’d be following in Mom’s footsteps with the whale stuff.” She didn’t say it with as much resentment as she might have thirty years ago. Going into the marine mammal field when her mother had been one of the most influential conservationists in maritime history had always seemed a given, yet somehow never for the reasons she’d seen it as one. For years she’d resented Katara for her shadow. But age and wisdom had slowly given her more appreciation for her work, especially as Kya had grown her own formidable reputation as a rehab specialist. By this point, she was as proud to carry Katara’s legacy as she hoped Katara was to let her.</p><p>She glanced down at Lin out of the corner of her eye, once more entertaining an idea that she’d been thinking of since she was given the sculpture. “Can I… would you mind if I put it up on the shelf? The one by the window?”</p><p>Lin pulled back suddenly, and Kya got a bit nervous before she turned to see another lovestruck grin on her face. “Of course!” She exclaimed, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “I’d love that.” Kya gave her an excited kiss on the cheek before bouncing into the living room to place it. </p><p>After finding the best position, she stepped back to admire her first real, decorative mark on the space she was rapidly coming to think of as “theirs” instead of “Lin’s.”</p><p>“Perfect,” Lin declared from behind her. Kya turned around just in time to grab her up in a hug, tucking her face into the crook of Lin’s neck. It didn’t take long for Lin to return the affection, looping her arms around Kya’s waist. “I missed you,” she added quietly.</p><p>Kya smiled against her. “I missed you too,” she said, dropping her voice a bit lower and pressing a kiss to Lin’s pulse point. “A lot.”</p><p>Lin stiffened, causing Kya to pull back immediately. Before she could say anything, Lin was already talking. “I’m sorry, I- I know that people usually- But I don’t want to- I mean-” she stuttered nervously. Kya reached out to take her hands and squeeze them, silently telling her to slow down. Lin looked at her for a moment before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “Can we just… cuddle?” She asked, looking at Kya imploringly. “I just really missed you.”</p><p>Despite the fact that they’d had similar moments in the past three weeks, this was the first time Lin had asked to skip sex so directly. Kya felt her chest swell at the thought that she was becoming comfortable enough to do so. “Of course!” She replied in a mimic of Lin’s earlier tone. Lin blushed at the tease, but there was an appreciation in her eyes that Kya decided she’d never get tired of. She pulled her close again. “I love you,” she murmured into the younger woman’s hair.</p><p>“I love you, too.”</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Following two days in which Republic City had been relatively calm, Lin was quietly daring to hope for a third. She supposed that would be pushing it, considering that some higher power had already granted her the spare time to come up with a surprise dinner plan for Kya, but they <em> did </em> say these things came in threes. Or maybe having Kya back had just put her in an unusually optimistic mood.</p><p>She cut through the bullpen and dumped her briefcase and keys in her office before making a beeline for the breakroom and, more importantly, her second cup of coffee. Inside, she found Mako, Qin, and Lian seated at the table, drinking their own coffees.</p><p>“Good morning,” she greeted as she entered. The table stopped their conversation, glancing suspiciously at each other.</p><p>“Morning, Chief,” Mako replied slowly, and eventually the others repeated after him. </p><p>Lin raised an eyebrow at their hesitation. “Everything alright? Did something happen?” She asked, ready to be told of some horrific new case or overnight accident.</p><p>Lian shook their head. “Nah, all’s quiet on the radio,” they informed her. “Nice evening off yesterday?” </p><p>“Yes, thank you.” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, not fully believing them, but kept going anyway. “Which reminds me; Mako, I wanted to talk to you. Kya’s little gang of ocean warriors is coming over for her birthday on Sunday,” she told him. “And since I’m pretty sure that consists of all the friends you have, I figured we’d invite you too.”</p><p>Mako rolled his eyes at the insult. “Wow, Chief. I’m touched,” he said dryly. “What time?”</p><p>“Six. Bring a swimsuit if you’re interested in swimming.”</p><p>“Chief has a swimming pool?” Lian interjected. “Mako, you might be the first one to ever swim in it!”</p><p>“Lin Beifong hosting a house party.” Qin crossed her arms. “You know, I’m a little offended we’re not invited. I’ve known you for twenty years and I think I’ve been to your house twice.” She was grinning as she said it, and Lin knew it was all in jest. But maybe, if this went well, it wouldn’t be so bad to have a few of her officers over sometime. Kya <em> was </em>right about her not using the outdoor space enough.</p><p>She rolled her eyes and finally made her way to the coffee machine. As seemed to always be the case, the pot was empty, likely the fault of the three delinquents behind her, and no one had made a new one. The minor annoyance suited her just fine; this way she could make it strong enough that no one could say anything about the amount of sugar she added.</p><p>Having some people over for Kya’s birthday had actually been Lin’s idea, and to her surprise she had yet to regret it. She’d drawn a line at having her ex-boyfriend over for dinner, and looking back on the handful of interactions Lin and Tenzin had had since she and Kya started dating, Kya had agreed to spare all three of them the awkwardness, choosing to have some people from the center come over instead.</p><p>“Yeah, my brother works with all of them down at the Yue Center. He’s one of Kya’s main volunteers,” Mako was saying as she absently tuned back into the table’s conversation. “It’s pretty neat, other than the days he works with the stingrays and comes home smelling like the harbor.”</p><p>“Ugh, it took me an hour to get the fish smell off my hands after I touched one,” Lin scoffed as she poured her coffee. By the time she’d finished adding cream and sugar, she realized that the group was staring at her once more. “What?” She demanded.</p><p>“<em> You </em> went and pet <em> stingrays </em>?” Qin asked with a raised eyebrow.</p><p>Lin leaned backward against the counter and crossed her arms. “I did. And what of it?” </p><p>The table shared a look between themselves. “Nothing, Chief, just a bit out of character for you,” said Lian. She glared at them, but they simply took an innocent sip of their coffee.</p><p>“Was this when you went to visit Kya at work a while back?”</p><p>“You know, Qin, I’m <em> really </em>starting to regret telling you about that.”</p><p>Mako stood to rinse out his cup. “Kya must be pretty special if she’s convincing you to go around petting fish,” he commented.</p><p>“Thin ice, Detective,” Lin warned.</p><p>“Actually, Opal was over the other night and she mentioned something about an octopus...”</p><p>Lin shot up from the counter threateningly. Mako dropped his half-clean coffee mug and sprinted out the door before she could smack the stupid grin off his face. “See you Sunday, Chief!”</p><p>Lian and Qin both cracked up with laughter. She growled under her breath before declaring, “If he’s so funny, one of you can wash his dishes before you both find yourselves out of a job.”</p><p>“Aye aye, Chief!” Lian said with a salute, at the exact moment Qin said, “I hear the marine center’s hiring.”</p><p>Lin glowered at them and took her coffee to her office instead.</p><p> </p><p>To Lin’s extreme suspicion, the rest of the day, and in fact two more, passed in relative calm. By Friday, she had been wary, and by the time she left the station on Sunday, she was all but waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even the weather was cooperating, abnormally warm but with a gentle breeze that would make sitting outside pleasant and swimming comfortable. It only added to the apprehension she already had about the evening. The very idea of having that many relative strangers in her home felt exhausting, and she still had the actual event to get through. She reminded herself that it was for Kya, and that anything for Kya was worth it, and that she could get through one night.</p><p>Apparently, she wasn’t the only one unsettled by the lack of activity. “I haven’t had a single emergency since before I left,” Kya declared the moment she walked in the door. She looked about as on-edge as Lin felt, her typical bubbly mood muted. “No surgery, no filtration crash, not even a sea turtle stranding.”</p><p>“I haven’t either,” Lin admitted. They looked at each other for a moment before both adamantly shaking their heads. <em> Best not to look a gift horse in the mouth. </em></p><p>“Did you at least have a nice day?” Lin asked, carrying two bowls of chips out to the patio table. Kya followed her with a homemade dip she’d put together the day before, and snagged a chip as soon as she set it down.</p><p>“I did,” she said as she chewed. Lin grimaced, still disgusted by the habit despite the fact that she knew it wasn’t going anywhere. “We finally got the green light to begin Ryo’s release process-”</p><p>“That’s great!” She interjected. Kya had been waiting for this for months. But by the look on her face, it wasn’t as big of a moment as she had thought.</p><p>Kya shrugged. “It’s just the first go ahead, it’ll be at least a month before the release. But, it’s a step in the right direction!” She finished, chipper in a way that Lin knew meant she was determinedly trying to reclaim her good mood. “I have a rule against birthday presents, but the little shits at the Center conspired to get me a new chair for my office. I guess I can’t complain, though. It’s certainly practical.”</p><p>Lin listened as Kya continued setting up and recounting the day’s happenings as they went back inside. The veterinarian slowly regained a bounce to her step, and eventually began her usual habits of twirling and dancing mutedly as she went about her business. Even her voice began to lighten. Lin was thrilled to see it; with all the stress Kya constantly carried, she deserved a good week, especially around her birthday. She even felt the excitement beginning to rub off on her, as well, the evening beginning to seem less and less daunting.</p><p>Before she had much time to think about it, the doorbell was ringing. Korra and Asami arrived first, the latter carrying a rather nice bottle of white wine that she handed to Lin. “A thank you, for having us all over tonight,” she said with a kind smile. </p><p>Lin had to admit she was impressed. She hadn’t expected kids their age to bother with a hostess gift, and to be honest she wouldn’t have faulted them for it. They were college kids and grad students; they didn’t need to be spending money on trivial formalities like that. However, from what she’d heard Asami had been brought up in a similar style to Lin, in unfortunately polite society, and it appeared that the resulting manners had been instilled in her too. She’d originally been floored when she heard that the girl was the CEO of Sato Marine, the largest boat manufacturer in the vicinity of Republic City and the overhead of most of the boating storage in town. Every time she’d met her, Asami had been sweet, and Kya had nothing but good things to say about her, but Lin still didn’t know her well.</p><p>Korra, on the other hand, Lin had become very familiar with. She’d decided some time ago that she approved of Kya’s protégé, even if Korra seemed a little too flighty for her liking. Kya led the two young women outside, immediately striking up a conversation, while Lin stayed behind to finish a few things in the kitchen. Almost as soon as she finished setting out an ice bucket, the door chimed again. The arrivals this time were her niece and the two boys.</p><p>“Hi Aunt Lin!” Opal greeted enthusiastically as Lin waved them all in. Lin barely had a second to reply before she was pushing a potted plant into her hands. “This is, um, for you,” the teen told her. Lin glanced down in confusion. The plant was a little, spidery-looking thing with long leaves, residing in a small pot shaped like- of all things- a winged boar. Lin was torn on whether the girl knew the significance or not, and even more so on how she felt about it. Not commenting seemed the safest way to go, so she simply said “Thank you” and accepted Opal’s quick hug.</p><p>Lin was still unsure of how to act, and Opal obviously was as well, but after their lunch, things didn’t feel quite as awkward between them, and for that Lin was glad.</p><p>“Hey, Chief,” Mako greeted, holding out a hand. A casual handshake. Good. Familiar. She knew what to do with that.</p><p>“Hello, Mako. Bolin,” she said, nodding at the younger boy as well. “The others are out on the porch,” she told the three of them. “You go on through, I’ll be out in a minute.”</p><p>Opal and Bolin did as told, but unsurprisingly, Mako hung back. “Anything I can help with?”</p><p>Lin considered him for a moment. Out of all of them, he was the only one who had been to her house before; she’d badgered him into staying one weekend after he’d been laid up with a pretty terrible concussion on the job. At the time, his brother had been out of town, and she hadn’t been about to let her best detective struggle on his own for three days. Since then, he’d been by a handful of times, mostly to work on difficult cases. Lin hadn’t even known it, but he was another person she’d let into her space. “Sure,” she said, nodding in the direction of the oven. “You can help me finish up with dinner; there’s not much left to do.”</p><p>He looked relieved to have something to do rather than mingle, sharing her discomfort around social situations. “You got it, Chief.”</p><p>They spent the next twenty minutes finishing up the large batch of lo mein and steamed dumplings that Lin had been working on, passing it in companionable silence aside from Lin’s occasional instructions. Hearing the chaos erupting outside as Bolin and Korra found their way into the pool, she eventually shooed Mako out to join them as she set her phone timer for when everything would be finished, and found herself following him. </p><p>After dinner, everyone retreated to the outdoor sofa and fire pit. Lin had already set up everything needed for a fire, so she simply lit a starter and sat back to watch. The conversation was pleasantly buoyant, and when she gave it a moment of thought, she was surprised to find herself enjoying the company. Having the kids over, the silent house filled with chatter and activity for once, the yard lit up and lively, was… nice. The more she got to know them, the fonder she was growing of Kya’s little troupe as well. For twenty-somethings, they seemed to have their acts together. Seeing Mako’s rare smile and the way he relaxed among his friends had warmed her heart as well; he was always so serious, and she commended him for the maturity, but she was also glad for the proof that he took time to be young as well. </p><p>It was strange, to feel like she’d gotten back something she never had to begin with. But it wasn’t unpleasant.</p><p>“So, Kya, now that you’re living somewhere with dock space, does that mean you’re coming to get that eyesore off my lot?” Asami questioned. Lin raised her eyebrows at Kya.</p><p>“You didn’t tell me you had a boat,” she accused. “Why haven’t you brought it by?”</p><p>Kya sighed wistfully. “It was my Uncle Sokka’s; he left it to me when he passed away years ago. As much as I’d love to have it here, it needs some serious work, and with everything at the Center I don’t have the time to give it the TLC it needs. At this point, I’m not even sure it would float. Asami’s been kind enough to store it for me in dry dock.”</p><p>The impossibly young CEO sat forward. “She’s a great little cuddy cabin, and she’s got good bones,” she explained to Lin. “You could definitely patch her up in a couple of weeks and get her out there, if you don’t mind riding something that was made sometime between dirt and the dinosaurs.”</p><p>“Oh, so the same age as her truck?” Lin questioned. </p><p>“Precisely. I’m glad someone finally understands the ridiculousness of her and Korra’s obsession with vehicles that look like they could fall apart at any second.” Kya and Korra both shouted their protest in unison, earning a laugh from the rest of the gathering. </p><p>“Maybe it’s a Harbor City thing,” Bolin offered teasingly. He reached beside him to toss another handful of small sticks into the fire. </p><p>Opal’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, you’re both from Harbor City? How did I not know that?” she exclaimed. “Kya, I thought you grew up here?”</p><p>“I did, partially. My family and I spent half the year here and half in Harbor City, where my mom grew up. Korra’s the full-timer.”</p><p>“Went to HCU and everything,” Korra confirmed.</p><p>“Then how’d you end up doing grad school way up here?” Lin questioned.</p><p>“Well, my particular interest is in Southern Ocean species, especially dolphins, and Kya has the most experience with those in the world,” Korra explained. </p><p>Kya huffed quietly. “Some of the only experience in the world,” she muttered, cheeks coloring a bit. </p><p>“She’s basically been my idol since I was like, ten, so I asked her to be my masters’ advisor and she agreed, and I guess she must like me, because she’s letting me stick around for my doctorate, and vet school too,” she finished, bumping her shoulder into Kya’s with a teasing grin. It was apparently a bit stronger than intended, because Kya shifted hard enough she had to swing her drink out to keep from spilling it. She gave the young woman an exasperated look.</p><p>“Spirits only know why,” she griped affectionately. Korra stuck out her tongue and then settled back against the cushions with a satisfied grin.</p><p>“So, what’s your PhD actually going to be in?” Mako asked, his head cocked sideways in curiosity.</p><p>“Marine mammal conservation,” Korra explained. “The degrees are a bit more specific than people usually make them sound. I’ve got all of my coursework done, and what I’m working on right now is a dissertation and research on whether it’s feasible to institute rehab programs for southern right whale dolphins, and a few other species.”</p><p>Lin raised an eyebrow. “Whale-dolphins?”</p><p>“They’re really just dolphins without dorsal fins,” Bolin said. “I’d never heard of them either, until I met Korra.”</p><p>“Which is a crime, because they’re amazing!” Korra huffed.</p><p>“They are a rather interesting-” Kya cut off when her cell phone started ringing. She glanced down at the caller ID and looked surprised. “Oh, it’s the Wildlife Commission. I’d better take this.” She patted Lin’s knee and stood to go answer the call on the other end of the patio. </p><p>Lin took a sip of her drink and turned back to Korra, listening as she continued her explanation. “So at the end of this year, I’ll have to give a defense at the University. It starts with a presentation and I mean, if you’re bored, basically anyone can come to that. I’m not exactly looking forward to <em> that </em>, but to be honest the actual defense is gonna be worse. I’ve got to go into a room with my whole thesis committee, including Kya-” She nodded her head in the direction Kya had walked, but stopped suddenly with a confused look.</p><p>Lin turned just in time to see Kya’s face fall from troubled to outright alarmed. She ripped the pen out of her hair and pinned the phone between her shoulder and ear, frantically scribbling something down on her forearm. Her expression disappeared behind a curtain of gray and Lin looked at the kids gathered around the fire.</p><p>“Looks like the night’s getting cut short,” Asami said. “That’s a stranding face.”</p><p>Bolin sat forward and frowned deeply. “That’s a bit more than a stranding face,” he said, sounding suspicious.</p><p>Korra stood and stretched. “Nah, it’s probably just because we still have Ryo. I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Bolin didn’t appear convinced, and beside him Opal started to look worried as well. They all watched as Kya hung up and strode urgently back their way. Lin found herself growing more concerned as she approached, deep worry lines becoming clearer on her face. </p><p>“We got a stranding, Boss?” Korra asked.</p><p>“No,” Kya said, visibly shaken. “We have nine.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Byeeeeeeee</p><p>PS you can expect updates twice a month now- once in the middle(ish) and once at the end:)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Important scientific disclaimer at the end of the chapter, for those who are curious. For those who aren't, the TL;DR is don't read this and then go think you're gonna save all the dolphins. Please. Don't.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Kya’s brain shot into overdrive the moment she hung up the phone. The first thing she’d done was jump into the brightest wetsuit she owned and pull her emergency veterinary kit from Lin’s spare closet. The second was to make a call to the lead engineer in charge of the aquarium systems at Yue and tell him to start the process of getting the empty rehab pools set up. The third was to call her brother.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was in luck; it was only one ring before Bumi picked up, despite the fact she knew it was bingo night at the VA. “Well good evening, birthday girl!” He said cheerfully. She could hear the white noise of laughter and conversation in the background.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bumi. I need help. How many of your guys can you round up and get down to Phoenix Beach?” Kya asked without preamble. She pinned the phone between her shoulder and ear and jerked the steering wheel to follow the flashing lights of Lin’s car around a sharp turn. Tires screeched somewhere, but she wasn’t sure whose car it was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” He immediately fell serious, probably hearing the urgency in her voice.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I just got a report of nine dolphins stranded a mile south of Yue Light. I need-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Big, muscly folks who can take orders,” he finished for her. “Yep, I’m on it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re the best!” That was part of the numbers problem taken care of. She’d been training members of the local VA to respond to strandings since Bumi had become an active part of the organization, largely for the reasons he’d mentioned. They didn’t hesitate to follow instructions in a situation they weren’t familiar with, they didn’t stop and gawk in a crisis, and they were usually strong enough to hold a dolphin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya whipped her truck into the parking lot, not even bothering with the lines. There were a handful of cars in the beachfront row, most with their headlights on and pointed toward the beach for light. She was out of her own truck before the engine had fully shut off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a handful of lifeguards hovering uncertainly near the water’s edge, and she sprinted toward them, kit in hand. One, a kid in bright red shorts who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, met her halfway.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You the Yue Center lady?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I am,” she confirmed, already surveying the scene before her. She could count ten animals right off the bat: a mother-calf pair, at least two adults so large she’d put money on them being male, and the rest varying in size and age. They were all bottlenose, and there were enough that she knew she’d have to consider immediate release an option for the most healthy. One of the adults was worryingly far up the beach, which would make that almost impossible, and two were in a bad location right at the surf break. When the tide changed, they’d be absolutely battered.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“A couple walking along the beach found them about half an hour ago,” the lifeguard told her as Lin jogged up beside her. “They just keep washing up. There’s two more about a hundred yards down that way.” He waved his arm southward, and Kya followed the gesture to where she could see two more people standing near the water. Beyond that, almost at the end of her range of vision, something caught her eye. A large, dark object was rolling in the surf, slowly being pushed further and further out of the water.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Is that another one?” Lin asked, squinting in the same direction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya felt her chest suddenly go hollow, weightless, the way it went when she took Ikki and Jinora on the tower drops at the fair. This time, there was nothing stopping the freefall. “It is.” Four more animals had beached in a period of twenty minutes at the most. The weather was fine, and she couldn’t see any sign of human interaction. An understanding came from somewhere deep within her, a distant instinct suddenly awoken only to scream </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!</span>
  </em>
  <span> like an alarm bell: this was a mass stranding, and it wasn’t over yet.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As though to confirm the feeling, she heard the distinct sound of a spout, too far away to be any of the dolphins on the beach. Kya scanned the dark water beyond the surf intently. At the very edge of the yellowish cones thrown out by the headlights, she caught a flash of reflection and a small, dissipating cloud of mist. The rest of the pod, however many animals that may be, was still around.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Her mind kicked into something more than racing, a hyperactive state that she had only experienced a few times before as she hurried to analyze what she already knew. The thoughts flashed behind her eyes faster than she could ever hope to speak them: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Tursiops. Tursiops don’t mass strand, something bigger has to be wrong. Need to keep the offshore in the water. Check from the upper beach then down. Male too high up on the beach, breathed too many times since we got here; bad sign. Need eyes on the far animal. Mom and calf have to stay together. Better to move two in the surf out into water than onto shore. Korra’s coming with the vet kits. Need an initial check, ultrasound, have to keep them organized somehow. There might be more, send Korra when she gets here-</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s going to be more,” she finally stated, turning back to Lin and the lifeguards. “Do you know if there are any further that way?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That’s the wildlife reserve down to the south. We don’t guard it,” the lifeguard told her unhelpfully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Did the kids not send someone to check? </span>
  <em>
    <span>No, can’t blame them, they don’t know. Might want to train them sometime, Bonehead.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “I need to know if there are,” she repeated.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you have an ATV?” Lin asked sharply.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The lifeguard nodded. “Yeah, I can get it here in ten minutes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya immediately caught on to what she was thinking. “Make it five,” she ordered, and he ran off.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What else do you need?” Lin asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She considered her options for a moment, until she heard Asami’s car rip into the parking lot. Korra jumped out of the convertible without even opening the door. “I need everything in Asami’s car down here stat.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You three, with me,” Lin snapped at the other guards, already moving toward the parking lot. Kya took a split second to be grateful for how amazing Lin was in a crisis before she moved on and finally knelt down beside the closest dolphin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The reality of the situation began to sink in as she pressed her leg into its side. The dolphin’s only reaction was to let out a puff of air. There wasn’t the common flinch or ripple of muscle, no thrashing or wiggling or even vocalization. She checked the time of the breath on her watch, noted it mentally, and rested her hand against the side of the animal’s head to check its pulse. The poor lighting made it difficult to see, but she could make out several faint white scars, shaped like scratches, along its side. Rake marks, from another dolphin’s teeth during a tussle. Adding that information to the animal’s overall size, she made a judgement call: adult male.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Korra dropped four pelican cases to the sand beside her just as she was finishing her initial assessment. “I brought everything from the Center. Where do you want me?” The grad student questioned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya looked up at her, still listening for a second breath from the dolphin. “There’s thirteen already stranded and more in the water; I don’t know how many.” Korra’s eyes widened and she whipped her head around to look down the beach. “The lifeguards are getting us an ATV. As soon as we’ve got it, you and Asami take it as far as you can. Take a GPS and a walkie and radio back a position marker and cursory assessment for each animal you see.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You think there’s more?” Korra questioned. Before Kya could answer, she was already shaking her head. “Of course there are, we have to assume there are. Okay. These are all bottlenose. Okay.” It was rare that Korra sounded anxious, but she certainly did now. Kya recognized the statement of the obvious as one of the ways she grounded herself in crises. The situation before the certainly qualified.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“So far, yes,” Kya confirmed. “I’m worried it’s a follow-the-leader situation, but we can’t do much about that in the dark. So right now I need to know the extent of what’s actually on the beach.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Korra nodded and let out a sharp exhale. “Okay. Asami had the calls to the hotline forwarded to her phone for now. That’s that wildlife park, so there’s not a ton of beach access, but what if we use Lin’s cops to check on the other side? If they find anything I can go check on it, but if they don’t, I only have to go fifteen miles.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can arrange that.” Lin dropped two more cases and an armful of stretchers at Korra’s feet. ”I already alerted the dispatch office about what’s going on; I’ll have numbers for backup soon.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya considered the idea for a half second before nodding. If they were lucky, it would keep her from losing the only other veterinarian she had for more than an hour or two. “Do it,” she ordered. Lin tugged a radio off her hip and stepped away to make the call just as the roar of an ATV sounded from up the beach. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The dolphin under Kya’s arm gave a weak jerk at the unfamiliar sound, and she took a moment to concentrate on his heart rate once more. His pulse raced beneath her hand, far faster than it should have been. Stress. Behind her, she could hear a series of clicks and squeaks coming from one or more of the others. The negative reactions weren’t exactly ideal, but Kya reminded herself to be glad for any activity from this group.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It occurred to her that she’d completely forgotten she was supposed to be listening for a second breath from her dolphin, and even if she had paid attention, she’d already forgotten the start time. She made another mental note to start the observation over on the next exhale; she needed that information.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She turned back to Korra to see a much more determined look on the young woman’s face. It seemed as though she’d pushed past the initial shock, just as Kya had. Good; Korra was well suited for high-stakes situations like this. “If you see any offshore, try and get some sort of count,” Kya told her. She locked eyes with the girl and gave her the sternest look she could muster. “Korra, you can’t stop for long on any of them. We have to prioritize.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Korra’s face set even harder. “I know, Boss. I’m on it.” She snatched up one of the pelican cases and hurried toward where the first lifeguard was climbing off the vehicle, shouting for Asami as she did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The rest of the kids appeared just as they left, and Lin came back as well. “I’ve got two officers shutting down the parking lot; I warned them about the vets coming in,” the police chief said.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Wing and Wei are on their way, too,” Opal added. She was practically vibrating with worry, a sharp contrast to Bolin and Mako’s serious expressions.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good. Opal, you’re the only one here whose handwriting I can read; I want you on forms for now. Korra’s checking the beach for more animals. She’ll radio back what she finds. Start filling out a stranding report with the info for each one, label them with basic numbers for now so we can keep track.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I can do that,” she said quickly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There’s a table in the back of my car, will that help?” Lin asked. Opal nodded and Lin threw her the keys to the SUV. “No joyrides with the lights on, yeah?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No promises,” Opal tossed back over her shoulder as she sprinted away. Kya gave a strained laugh at the attempted brevity. Of course now would be the first time she saw aunt and niece joking around together.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Having addressed everything else she could, Kya turned to Mako, Bolin, and Lin. “You three are all I’ve got for now. Lin, Mako, try to stabilize the two in the surf. Keep them pointed toward shore, that should cut down on how much the waves are beating them up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The two of them split off to do as she said. “Bolin, you’re with me. Get a zinc marker out of the silver case and number mine, Lin’s, and Mako’s; we’re going to need to keep track, especially once Opal comes back.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bolin nodded and retrieved the bright pink marker, returning to mark a large ‘1’ on the melon of the dolphin Kya was currently holding. Opal was returning with an armful of clipboards, one of the lifeguards running behind her with Lin’s folding table held over his head. She set it up within speaking distance of Kya and the others, but far enough away that the water wouldn’t pose a threat. “Opal, we’re taking numbers one through nine for these. Label mother-calf pairs with the same number A and B,” Kya told her as the radio buzzed for the first time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve got an assessment on the first two, over,” Korra’s voice called, crackling with static. Opal grabbed up the walkie and began furiously taking notes, and Kya let their voices fade to background noise as her dolphin finally took another breath. She waved Bolin in onto the dolphin’s other side so he could hold it while she finished taking its vitals. Kya recorded everything on one of the stranding forms on a clipboard, knowing how important it would be to keep track. She looked over the numbers, mind racing to determine whether the still, silent dolphin beneath her could be saved. They weren’t catastrophic, but they weren’t anywhere remotely near good. She hoped it wasn’t a sign of what was to come that her first decision was a middle of the road situation.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Next one,” she said, deciding to get a clearer idea of the overall picture. After all, it was possible that this was the healthiest dolphin on the beach. Bolin stood, and they moved on to the next animal, Kya approaching first from the left and then Bolin from the right. He held it steady with one arm and marked a ‘4’ on its melon as she pressed her stethoscope to its side, listening for a heartbeat. What she found was weak and thready, racing somehow even faster than the previous animal’s. When it took a breath, the sound came out more as a wheeze than a good chuff, and it was quickly followed by another and another. The speed of both was enough to tell her that despite not being as far up the beach as the male, this one had been out of the water for much longer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Its skin was marked with scars, fewer than the big male’s and considerably more faded. She couldn’t get confirmation yet, but she had a vague idea that this was an elderly female. It came with the heavy thought that her age and obvious stress put her at the bottom of the priority list. Kya refused to let herself dwell on it and instead recorded the numbers and prepared to move on.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Opal, where are we?” she questioned.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The teenager looked up at her with frantic eyes, and she knew immediately the news wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear. “Korra just called in number eighteen.”</span>
</p><hr/>
<p>
  <span>Lin leaned forward with shock when her niece called the number. She glanced at Mako to see him looking similarly dismayed. Kya herself seemed to take the information in stride, nodding once and otherwise barely reacting as she gave Opal the papers she had already filled out and moved on to her next animal. Lin knew she had to be compartmentalizing, intimately familiar with the practice herself. Kya’s brain was clearly in go-mode; she didn’t have time to stop and freak out over the astronomical number. Lin, however, had several moments to consider it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t know what a good number would have been, but eighteen definitely couldn’t be it. Back at the training all those weeks ago, Kya had arranged six people at a time for a dolphin; four on the sides, a leader, and one on the tail. At Ryo’s stranding, it had been reduced to just the two of them, but Ryo was also half the size of some of the dolphins here. Lin had no idea what the metric really was for these things, but the dolphin she was on seemed massive. The darkness and the waves made it hard to tell, but she was pretty sure it was more than ten feet long. If this thing really wanted to throw her aside and take off, she doubted she would be able to hold on, let alone stop it. If </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kya </span>
  </em>
  <span>wanted her to do anything more than hold it upright, they were going to need a lot more people.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The water pulled back from around her and she braced herself for another wave, planting her outside leg into the sand as best she could. Sure enough, the cold water washed over her back seconds later, soaking her to just below her shoulders. Her dolphin gave a hard thrash as the water crashed over it as well, and she held on for dear life to keep from being thrown off. She huffed with exertion and adjusted her foot again in an attempt to keep the animal steady as all the movement rocked it back and forth.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You hanging in there, Chief?” Mako teased. His voice sounded strained, and when she glared his way she could see why. His dolphin was wriggling side to side so hard that the kid looked like he was riding a mechanical bull. Eventually, the animal settled, and he was able to shake his soaked hair out of his face to shoot her a grin. “Piece of cake!” he added when she raised an eyebrow.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You might want to save your energy,” she told him dryly before looking back over to Kya. The veterinarian had moved on to the furthest dolphin from them, leaning hard on its side as she pressed the stethoscope up against its head. She frowned heavily; whatever she was hearing wasn’t good. After a long moment, she sat back on her heels and shook her head. The pair moved on. The realization of what that head shake meant came down heavily on Lin’s shoulders: there would be no saving that one.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Before Kya could kneel down to the next dolphin, a large group of people approached from the parking lot. One, a large man with a rough haircut and beard, made his way straight for Kya. Lin supposed he was the brother. He stepped up to give her a hug, but Kya pulled away almost immediately, clearly focused on other issues. They spoke for a moment, and Kya gestured toward Lin and Mako. The man nodded. The group divided, leaving him heading Lin’s way and one more person heading Mako’s. The rest dispersed around the other dolphins, arranging themselves so that there was at least one person on each. They all seemed to know what they were doing, and she took a moment to be impressed at the level of organization they displayed without speaking.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Lin Beifong, I presume?” The bearded man said, dropping into the water beside her. She nodded at him as he settled his arm overtop hers on the dorsal fin. “I’m Bumi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She nodded again. “It doesn’t seem to like when the waves come in; it tends to start moving then,” she informed him. “I’ve been watching its breathing, but I don’t have a watch on me so it’s pretty relative.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bumi looked surprised for a moment before clearly deciding to roll with it. “Good thing for you, I do have one,” he told her cheerfully.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then you can keep track of its breathing,” she declared, resting the back of her hand against the animal’s head in the way she had seen Kya do to feel for its heart rate.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Aye, aye, Chief!” He said, looking down at his watch as the dolphin inhaled again. </span>
  <span>“So, you’re the girlfriend?” he continued amicably, grinning at her. “How did someone of such an upstanding background fall in with my delinquent little sister?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lin shot him an incredulous look. Was he really about to have this conversation overtop a dolphin that could literally be dying between them? Almost as soon as she thought it, the dolphin thrashed again, causing them both to bear down on it. Okay, so maybe not dying at this very moment. Still, there were better times and places for a meet-the-family chat than here, both of them soaked to the bone and trying not to have their ribs smashed at the beginning of what she was sure would be a sleepless night. “Don’t you think there are more important things to-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Bumi, are you harassing my cop?” Lin looked up to see Kya standing over them, the barest hint of a smile flickering on the corners of her lips. At the very sight of the possibility, Lin felt her irritation begin to fade. If it was keeping Kya’s spirits up, she’d endure a lifetime of ridiculous small talk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya took a knee in front of Lin, immediately soaked up to her waist, and began looking the dolphin over. “Adult, presumed male,” she told the person standing behind her. She’d traded Bolin for a put-together-looking woman who held a clipboard in a prosthetic arm and wrote with a flesh one. When Lin scanned the scene for the kid, she found him far down the beach, directing a group of incoming people to the pair of dolphins a football field away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m just trying to make conversation,” Bumi said innocently, calling Lin’s attention back to them. “Don’t worry, she’s keeping me on task.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya raised an eyebrow as she rested her hand where Lin’s had been on the dolphin’s head only minutes before. “She happens to be good at that,” she said seriously. The dolphin gave a wild buck at the new presence, and Kya drew back quickly to keep from being injured even as Lin and Bumi pressed closer. “A fighter,” Kya said when he stilled. This time, her smile was definitely there.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Out of the corner of her eye, Lin could tell that Bumi was as relieved to see it as she felt. Perhaps he </span>
  <em>
    <span>did </span>
  </em>
  <span>know what he was doing. “We got a respiratory rate for you, five per minute,” he told Kya. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The vet frowned at him. “Five?” She asked, putting on her stethoscope and reaching to rest the metal plate against the skin on top of its head.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bumi nodded. “Yep. I counted three separate times.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya listened to whatever was going on beneath the dolphin’s skin for a long moment, waiting for him to take several breaths before pulling away. Her hand found its way back to the side of its head. She didn’t look thrilled as she called the vital numbers back to her new scribe, but her expression didn’t give a definitive answer either way. “Okay. You both know what you’re doing, and I don’t have enough people to try and move him right now, so I’m leaving you both here. Lin, as soon as I have enough people to swap you out, I’m going to. It’ll be morning soon and I’m not interested in this becoming a sideshow.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lin nodded at her. “The AC on duty and most of my other officers will be here when the morning shift picks up; we’ll have more bodies to spare with daylight, too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Exactly what I wanted to hear,” Kya said. She stood and shifted to Mako’s dolphin. Pinned between the detective and the new volunteer, this one was thrashing with much more frequency than even Lin’s. Kya waited for several moments before it became safe to approach. “Adult, presumed male.” She went through the routine of checking it over, calling back much lower numbers than she had for Lin’s. She sat back once she finished, careful to avoid the animal’s flailing head. “You’ve got a tough guy here,” she said thoughtfully. “Ahnah, mark three as a priority. Let’s get some more people on him ASAP.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Marked,” the other woman replied.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Kya turned back to Mako. “We’ll see if we can’t get you some help before he throws you into next week.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Thanks… Kya,” Mako said, cutting off in the middle to grab the dolphin tighter as it began moving again. This time, it gave out a loud creaking sound that almost reminded Lin of a cabinet being opened. The noise continued for several seconds, ending with a series of sharp clicks, and she saw Kya brighten at hearing it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hang in there, guy,” she said. She reached out and placed a hand on the now-still dolphin’s head. Lin watched in fascination as Kya gave a moment of herself to this new animal. Rushed though she was, she had paused for this one, earnest hope in her expression alongside the concern that had been there all night. Lin could practically feel her willing the dolphin to stay strong. It was so much more reminiscent of how she had looked at Ryo than her earlier clipped professionalism, and that was a bolstering thought until Kya stood and left, drawing Lin’s eye back to the nine others further up on the beach. The ones that hadn’t elicited such an encouraging reaction.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She watched until Kya began moving toward the three faraway dolphins, then turned back to the one beneath her arm. Considering his current situation, Lin had thought he was doing pretty well. He was certainly active, though not quite as active as the next one over, and his heartbeat felt strong to her. But Kya’s assessment had given her a different impression.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah, she didn’t look too excited about this one,” Bumi said, as if he could hear her thoughts. “She warns me every time I come on one of these things, but I’m always surprised when…” he looked down at the dolphin almost guiltily, as though it could hear him. She’d seen the same sort of behavior from Kya at the Center.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How many have you been on?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“This’ll make four,” he said. “None of them exactly… successful. But I hear you’ve had more luck.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“With Ryo, yes,” she said. She paused for a moment to think back to that night. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She’d learned a few things then, but mostly she’d been distracted by Kya. It hadn’t been anything like this was; Ryo had been mostly still and so much smaller than the dolphins here. The current dolphin was breathing at about the same speed as he had been, but did that mean anything given their difference in size? Weren’t bigger things supposed to breathe less often? Lin looked hard at him again, trying to take notice of things that were different here. The softness of his skin came to mind first. It was smooth and rubbery like Ryokan’s had been, but there was a lot more give when she pressed against it, making him seem almost squishier. Searching hard, she decided that something about his head wasn’t quite right. Dolphins were supposed to have big, round foreheads and you weren’t really supposed to see their necks. This one had a wide divot between its head and back. But they were different, maybe that was normal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She didn’t have much longer to think about it. Between her attempts to avoid conversation with her girlfriend’s brother and the effort it took to hold the dolphin against the waves, it felt like barely minutes before a teenaged boy was running up to switch places with her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lin recoiled from the spray of water he kicked up, trying to at least keep it out of her eyes. “Chief Beifong? I’m supposed to swap out with you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When Lin looked a bit closer, she was struck by the feeling that she’d met this boy before. Something about him seemed disconcertingly familiar. He was watching her uneasily, probably because she was all but glaring at him as she tried to place it. It didn’t take her very long. “Are you Wing or Wei?” she asked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Damn, Opal was right. You </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>know our names,” the kid said, finally stepping in behind her. “I’m Wing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Oh, you two know each other?” Bumi drawled. “Care to fill me in?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s my replacement, didn’t you hear?” Lin told him dryly. She wasn’t sure which was more primed to be a gossip: Kya’s brother, or her sister’s son, but she </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>sure she did not want to be part of this conversation for much longer. She released the dolphin and stood as quickly as she could without putting the boy at risk.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“She’s my aunt, but she's been avoiding me for my whole life,” Wing explained with a heavy dose of sarcastic cheerfulness. Lin had to force herself not to look down at the water or rub at her neck at the sharp tone.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Bumi barked out a deafening laugh. “Then we’ll get along fine, kid. She’s dating my sister and she’s been avoiding me for the last three hours!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lin scowled at the both of them one last time before definitely </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>fleeing the conversation. Had she really been sitting there for three hours? Sure enough, dawn was slowly starting to color the sky above the city. Kya was still nowhere to be seen, so she made her way to Opal’s rickety card table, which seemed to have become something of a dispatch center. The girl was frantically bouncing between forms. She was obviously beyond overwhelmed, but Lin had to admit she looked as organized as one could have hoped for given the circumstances.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What can I do?” Lin immediately asked. Opal’s head snapped up and her shoulders immediately fell in relief.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Listen for the radio and help me figure out how to arrange people when more start showing up. I have to focus for a second to try and remember where I’ve already sent people.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“How many-”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Twenty six so far,” Opal informed her. “But they all seem to be in the park.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Lin blew out a breath. She’d thought eighteen was bad, but this was chaos. Logistically keeping track of that many animals, with the level of detail she’d been taught was necessary at the trainings, was going to be a nightmare. What was more, if that many of them were in the wildlife park, getting to them was going to be difficult. There were far fewer access points to that stretch of beach than there were to any of the municipal ones. And if they had to get the dolphins out of there, back to the Yue Center, that was going to be one hell of a process too.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next time she looked up, more people she recognized- four of her officers and Fire Chief Iroh- were coming over the dune line. It seemed that more backup had arrived.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do we got, Chief?” Saikhan asked as soon as they were within hearing distance.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She pulled a face. “Nothing good, I’ll tell you that. Chief,” she said, nodding at Iroh. The young man nodded back at her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Chief,” he greeted in his oddly posh voice. She’d have made fun of him for it if she hadn’t known how competent he was, or if she hadn’t been rather good friends with his mother. “What do you need from me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Manpower,” she said immediately. “Anyone you can spare. Kya said she’s got a training program with your lot too?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Some of us, yes,” Iroh confirmed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good. Get as many of them down here as you can. We’ve got twenty-six dolphins-” Zhao swore colorfully and the rest of her officers made various noises of disbelief. Even Iroh appeared taken aback by the enormity of the situation- “And that number keeps going up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She turned to look at Zhao and Rani. “You two, I want a five block perimeter around this parking lot. Shut down everything but essential roads, including the reserve. Take what you need; Iroh’s people can help you too,” she added with a confirming glance at the captain by her side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He nodded solemnly. “I can get the brush trucks and most of our barriers out here so yours are still on hand for anything that happens in town,” he said. “And I’ve got a shade I can set up over here so your girl doesn’t melt when the sun comes up.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good man. Above all else, no press is to get onto this beach, got it? There’s enough going on already, not a single camera without someone who’s got a Yue Center badge or a cop walking with them.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You got it, Chief,” Rani confirmed. She and the two men headed off, leaving Katashi and Saikhan in front of Lin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Both of you go back to the station. Katashi, you’re in charge of the radio. Anything they need, get it here.” She pulled out her phone and tapped as rapidly as she could. “I just sent you numbers for Asami Sato and Kya herself. Do </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>call Kya, but if she calls you and you don’t answer, you’re out of a job, Captain. Saikhan, take care of normal ops. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Try </span>
  </em>
  <span>not to let the city burn down while I handle this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Saikhan nodded once and stuck out his hand. Lin surprised even herself by accepting the shake. “We’re on it, Chief. Good luck.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“And to you,” she said as they, too, disappeared. And suddenly, Lin was alone for the first time in two days.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi all!! Before we get into this, I just wanted to make something extremely clear: this is, by no means,  a perfect description of what goes on during a mass stranding. Even with Ryokan's stranding, I took a lot of creative liberty to make the story more readable. Here, that liberty begins to go even further.<br/>As an integral part of this story, I try to communicate as much of the planning, science, and heart that go into a marine mammal stranding response as possible, but by no means am I a stranding expert, and not by <i>any </i> stretch of the imagination am I anywhere near as qualified as I make Kya out to be.<br/>What I am doing is giving you a diluted, introductory view of a subject that is extremely close to my heart, using characters who are as well. I'm not attempting to make light of this topic. This is not an instruction manual.  My personal views and opinions will make their way in. I hope that any disagreement or unfamiliarity you may have with anything I mention doesn't pull from your enjoyment of the story, and I am always happy to answer questions both in comments and on tumblr.<br/>All this to say, please, for the love of dolphins and all that matters in this world, <i> do not </i> read this story and come out thinking you would be able to respond or help with a stranding based on this knowledge alone. Thank you.<br/>Disclaimer aside, let's get on with the main event!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Content Warning: Detailed descriptions of euthanasia and animal death.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Until she was able to read without using a flashlight, it didn’t even occur to Kya that the sun had risen. It was the second day of the mass stranding. Objectively, she knew that the number of days this went on would eventually be important, but for now she was more concerned about hours. <em> Hours </em> were what decided between life or death.</p><p>Other than making things easier to see, daylight hadn't done many favors to the scene on the beach. The first ten dolphins still lay scattered across the sand in a patternless array. Enough volunteers had arrived that Kya could begin assigning full teams to individuals with priority. Dolphin number three, the large male Mako was working with, had been backed out of the surf into about three feet of calmer water beyond. There hadn’t been enough hands to move dolphin two until just now, freed up as dolphin six had become the fourth animal to die. The elderly female started declining just over two hours ago, her heart rate plummeting as her breaths per minute skyrocketed. Korra had been on another location, and Kya was the lead and the more experienced veterinarian anyhow, so she sat back on her heels in the sand and made the first decision to euthanize alone, and six joined dolphins seven, fifteen, and nineteen, all of which had passed naturally. It was a heavy feeling, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think this was where it would stop.</p><p>She’d returned to the initial scene and Opal’s little organization table to find that the girl had gotten several upgrades. Two more tables had been scrounged up, as well as a canopy tent and a frankly impressive bucket of clipboards. Opal herself was still a bit frazzled, but as the first rush of information began to slow down she seemed to be gaining a handle on things.</p><p>Korra had arrived not long after, and Kya was admittedly relieved to see her. Being able to work separately had been invaluable all night, but she was just as glad to have Korra’s second opinion in her ear as she began to determine which cases she to prioritize, and which not to. Now that the sun was up, they also had the option to begin transferring animals back to Yue, and she needed a sounding board for that, too. So far, Mako’s dolphin had shown the most promise, followed by a juvenile male from the pair nearby. “I got a look at three about an hour ago when we moved two; he’s still stable,” Kya explained to the younger woman. “He’s not any more active now that he’s in the water, but he’s not any less. Vocalizations have been pretty strong as well.”</p><p>“Sounds like a good case. Speaking of vocals, have you heard the mom down at mile three? Twenty-three A?” Korra questioned off-handedly. She flipped one of the papers on three’s clipboard. “Were you able to run an ultrasound?”</p><p>“I did, and I was,” Kya told her, used to fielding multiple topics at once. “I’m considering her and the calf for rehab too, but I’m waiting to see how she responds to steroids. As for three’s ultrasound, there was nothing too far outside the realm of normal, but there’s a moderate mass in the stomach that doesn’t look right.” She wished she could show her an image, but the simple, portable ultrasounds they had for use in the field didn’t give printouts.</p><p>Korra’s head tilted to the side in thought, though she didn’t look up from the clipboard. “Parasites?”</p><p>“I think so. I want to move him and twelve off the beach as soon as we can get some kind of transport,” Kya said. “We’ve got enough people we can start building in-water teams at Yue, and maybe if we’re lucky that’ll give us some idea of what we’re dealing with here. Thoughts?”</p><p>“Sounds like a plan,” Korra agreed. “It’ll be better for them in the long run, too. How are we planning on moving them? Bolin can get the van, but that’ll be two separate trips.”</p><p>A heavy thunk sounded on the table behind them. “I’ll do you one better: my superintendent just dropped off a covered truck.” Kya turned at the new voice to see Asami standing behind a large cardboard box of what looked like radio equipment. She could see the same worry in the CEO’s eyes as she could in all of her primary volunteers, but somehow it showed more clearly on Asami’s delicate face. She reached over the table to squeeze Korra’s hand for a moment, and the grad student managed a strained smile before picking up the notes for the second dolphin Kya wanted to move. Asami shot her one last concerned look before turning back to Kya. “It should be more than enough to fit two, but you should take a look just in case.”</p><p>Kya wasn’t sure whether to be surprised or relieved, so she settled for both. “That’s perfect, you’re a lifesaver,” she exclaimed. “I need to do a final assessment on both, but after that I can oversee-”</p><p>Her radio buzzed, cutting off her sentence. “<em> Doc? You there? </em>” She didn’t recognize the voice, but that didn’t matter when it sounded that urgent. Kya felt her chest twist with uneasiness as picked it up off the table beside her and pressed the receiver. </p><p>“I’m here.”</p><p>“<em> Uh, we’ve got two more dolphins coming in pretty close to shore. One of them kinda looks like it’s stuck. </em>”</p><p>She swore. It had been five hours without another stranding, and she’d begun to think that part, at least, was over. With the rest of the pod still milling around and popping into sight at odd intervals, she should have known it was a pipe dream. “Where at?” She asked. “And how close is ‘close’?”</p><p><em> “Uh, they’re pretty much where the waves are breaking at this point. </em> ” Korra’s head shot up to stare in horror at the radio. That wasn’t two dolphins coming close, that was as good as two dolphins already stranded. Kya sighed and squeezed her eyes shut in frustration. <em> You can’t blame them. None of these people are familiar enough they’d know that. </em> “Where on the beach are you?” She clarified. “I’m heading your way.”</p><p>
  <em> “Oh, uh. Between the big group of six and the lighthouse.” </em>
</p><p>Kya took a deep breath this time before responding, calling up a mental image of a young, fresh-out-of-the-academy police officer or one of Yue’s newest volunteers. By contrast, Korra dragged a hand down her face and sent the radio an irritated look. They needed specifics, faster than this person was giving them, but how were they supposed to know that? “I’ve got two separate groups of six; can you give me any of the ID numbers on those animals?”</p><p>
  <em> “Oh, yeah, uh, hang on a sec.” </em>
</p><p>“You’ve got to be kidding,” Korra muttered. “Kya, do you want to just start heading toward the lighthouse?”</p><p>“No,” Kya told her. “If we wait for an answer, we can take the ATV. We won’t hear it if we’re already on that and I don’t want to waste time walking. I might need two more teams of volunteers down there, can you guys-”</p><p>“Already on it,” Opal said, scanning over a piece of paper and reaching for her own radio.</p><p>“Good. In the meantime, can one of you try and get the information across that we need details at the front of the call? And that we need to be called before things have gotten this far?”</p><p>Korra snorted, earning a glare. “And not to be big dum-dums.”</p><p>“Korra, they don’t-”</p><p><em> “It’s numbers twenty-one through twenty-five,” </em> the radio chirped loudly. Kya abandoned her chastisement to reply.</p><p>“We’re on our way.”</p><p>“You know where it is?” Opal asked. “I put together a kind of map if you want it.”</p><p>Kya shook her head, already gathering her things. “No, I’ve got it.” It was true; she’d already built a mental image of where each animal was on the beach, firmly ingrained in her mind and expanding with every new addition. It hadn’t been too hard, initially, but when they’d had begun stranding in between each other, disorganizing the numbers, she’d had to put in more effort. But she simply didn’t have the time to consult a list every time she moved. “Korra, are you ready?”</p><p>“Always,” the grad student said, following Kya toward the ATV.</p><p> </p><p>By the time they made it to the location the volunteer had described, one of the dolphins had beached itself and the other was clearly stranded in the shallows. Kya supposed that with the information she’d been given she shouldn’t have expected anything different.</p><p>A group of three people stood nearby, all of them looking unsure about what to do. It didn’t look like they’d tried to touch the animals at all, which was typically a good thing, but at this point Kya would rather they had tried <em> something </em> . When she scanned the deeper water out past the shoal line, she thought she could see another fin rise and fall back into the water. <em> Need to get the other ones away from the shoreline. Have to make it clearer that keeping them away is top priority, have to chase them off if it looks like they’re coming in. Asami can do it, see if she can arrange boats. Monitor for vocalizations or reactions. </em></p><p>“Korra, let Opal know we need two confirmed teams,” she ordered. “Two of you, come with me.” </p><p>Both dolphins were mostly upright, neither of their blowholes blocked, so she made her way to the one in the surf, waiting for the two volunteers to step in on either side of it and steady it before she began her initial exam. Already, the signs were pointing to a lost cause. Struggling to stay put amongst the constant pounding of the waves, she registered the wheezing breaths and the sharp dent in the animal’s head that spoke of several weeks of poor nutrition. It made no move when they initially approached, nor when Kya began touching it. “Can either of you tell me how it was acting as it came in?”</p><p>The two volunteers looked at each other. “It kind of… wasn’t,” one said slowly. “It didn’t look like it was swimming much at all, just being pushed around by the water. We figured it was just too shallow, or it was tired or something.”</p><p>Kya nodded, still trying not to let her frustration show. This wasn’t a case of the animal being dead before it was found; they’d only had one of those so far. But it clearly wasn’t far off. Her options sat heavy on her shoulders. On one hand, she’d only been observing for a handful of minutes. There was a possibility that this could just be a low point for the dolphin, that it would suddenly rebound and beat the odds. On the other, she could barely feel its struggling heartbeat beneath her hand. When she attempted to listen with the stethoscope, admittedly less than perfect in the surf, she couldn’t hear the rush of breath, just a rattling, wet sound as its lungs tried and failed to fill themselves. It’s body simply couldn’t handle the stress it was under.</p><p>She took her own deep breath and forced herself to think through the final facts. It was suffering. There were twenty-two others that needed her time and resources. The chances of this being a ‘low point’ were as distant as Harbor City.</p><p>Korra splashed up at her side. “What we got, Boss?” </p><p>“Prepare a euthanasia kit,” Kya told her. “Estimate seven feet, severely malnourished.”</p><p>“On it.”</p><p>The volunteers both turned to her as she said it. Kya tried to ignore the shocked disappointment on their faces, but one seemed determined not to let her. “Are you sure, Doc? He doesn’t look too bad to me.” He looked down at the dolphin, as if expecting some big, unsurvivable wound to appear and support her decision.</p><p>“Yes,” she said, the word short and firm. The last thing she wanted to do was explain her reasoning to strangers, not when tensions were already running high. Not when she knew she’d begin to doubt herself if she lingered on it for too long.</p><p>The man pulled a face. “Well that’s shit,” he griped.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Maybe it was her tone, or maybe it was the other man glaring at him, but he decided to shut up after that. He did, however, maintain his aggravated air, and for the final five seconds it took Korra to get back from the ATV, Kya let herself imagine what would happen if she kept the image of his face and found out he was one of Lin’s cops. Lin would kick his ass, she just knew it. But such thoughts were unproductive and unbecoming. She needed steady hands to accept the syringe Korra was holding out.</p><p>Kya looked down at the dolphin’s big black eye for a moment, seeing sunshine and her own image reflected back at her, and did her best to memorize it the way she always did. This was a life come to a frightening, confusing end that the animal had no hope of understanding, and despite any overused and cliched phrasing, the eyes were the easiest way to see into the soul. Into the individual that this was. The least this dolphin, or any of the ones she eventually had to decide upon, deserved was for her to acknowledge that. “Easy now, baby,” she said softly as she traced the soft back to the thin skin at the base of the dorsal fin. Practiced fingers identified the necessary vein almost on instinct. This was a unique, individual, irreplaceable life come to far too early of an end, but she could at least ease its pain. “You’ll be okay.”</p><hr/><p>She didn’t want to say anything out loud, afraid of jinxing something, but in the early afternoon of day two, Lin was beginning to feel confident in the handle she and Opal had gotten on their makeshift command tent. It became apparent early on that the two of them thought along very similar organizational lines, enough so that when she’d left to check the perimeter her officers had set up, she’d come back and immediately understood the changes Opal had made. It was a small blessing in a situation that could easily have spiraled out of control at any moment.</p><p>The radio on the table beside her squawked, and she picked it up with a frown as she finished attaching Korra’s newest notes to number twenty-seven’s clipboard. “Beifong.”</p><p>“It’s Asami. I just got a call from the pilot boat keeping up with the rest of our pod; they’re still going strong at twenty miles out.”</p><p>It was good news. The rest of the pod had been hovering in the shallow water just off the beach since the previous night. Kya had been worried about it from the start, and it wasn’t without reason. The strandings hadn’t slowed down until well into night one. Even today, a total of five more dolphins had washed up, bringing the overall count to thirty-one individuals. They’d had to do something to stop any more potential incidents.</p><p>Kya had put Asami in charge of that operation, and the young woman had handled it admirably. Once they’d gotten sight of the free-swimming animals, she’d arranged for volunteers with wide sheets of netting to begin corralling them away from shore. As predicted, the dolphins had stayed well clear. Asami and several specialists from Future Marine had swept in with small boats when the water became deep enough. They’d woven back and forth enough to prevent the pod from doubling back. After several hours, the remaining dolphins had finally turned and sped back toward the open ocean, triggering a small wave of euphoria up and down the beach. It was now relatively certain that no more would strand.</p><p>Asami and several others still stood at a series of checkpoints, scanning the water for any stragglers, and the pilot boat she’d mentioned had been following the dolphins from a distance to keep an eye on them. Kya hadn’t given them a specific number to shoot for that would define them as truly gone, but Lin figured twenty miles and three hours without a sighting near shore was a sizable lead. “Copy that, I’ll let the vets know,” she said back into the radio.</p><p>Lin stood straight and rolled her neck out, trying to loosen muscles that had grown stiff from hunching over the table for so long. The good news was, she knew Korra and Kya were somewhere nearby; she’d seen them both hovering at the side of one of the original dolphins. Theoretically, she could have used the radio to get their attention, but the walk was almost nonexistent and if she were honest with herself, she wanted to check in on Kya. It had been hours since they’d last spoken, and even then it had only been in passing. Despite her admirable show of keeping it together, Lin knew there was no way this situation wasn’t weighing on Kya.</p><p>She found the veterinarians locked in a stalemate near the water’s edge. She couldn’t hear what they were talking about at first, but she could see the stubborn cross of Kya’s arms. Whatever it was, she wasn’t about to be swayed easily.</p><p>“We need to at least wait until another vet gets here,” she was saying as Lin approached. “I’ve called my mom, she’ll be here by this evening.”</p><p>“Kya, they can’t wait any more. Just go with them, I can handle things here,” Korra urged her.</p><p>“Go where?” Lin asked, looking between the two of them.</p><p>Korra huffed and turned to her. “We’ve got everything we need to get those males moved and the time to do it now, but Kya needs to go with them and she won’t listen to me.”</p><p>“I’m not leaving you in charge of this whole beach, that’s nowhere near fair to you,” Kya argued. “It’s already hard enough trying to direct everything between the two of us; you can’t do the veterinary work of two and still be able to assign volunteers, especially now that we need to start considering sending people home that have been here too long. And we still need to figure out how to start getting water handed out, and-”</p><p>“I can do that,” Lin said immediately.</p><p>They both turned to her. Where Kya was frowning in confusion, Korra had brightened considerably. “That’s right, Lin can do that,” the grad student exclaimed.</p><p>Kya stared at them as though they’d lost their minds. “Lin’s not a vet, she can’t-”</p><p>“I can do the vet stuff,” Korra cut her off. “Kya, listen to me, you <em> know </em>I can do this. And Lin and Opal have already been handling the volunteer stuff, it’ll just be official now. Lin’s got to do this kind of stuff all the time, right?”</p><p>Lin raised an eyebrow at the enthusiasm, but ended up nodding.</p><p>Kya didn’t look convinced, but Lin could see her wavering. She glanced back at the nearer of the two dolphins, the young one with the divot in its fin. “Lin, I can’t ask that, Opal is going to need to leave soon, and you’ve already been here for so long…” Even her voice was more uncertain. Even if Lin hadn’t known how important it was to move quickly, she would have been able to tell how much Kya wanted to move these two.</p><p>She reached out to put a hand on her arm, squeezing reassuringly. “Kya. I do this for a living. You trained Korra. We can handle this,” she said. “And even if the world comes to an end, Yue is right around the corner.”</p><p>“You’re not supposed to argue with a police officer, Boss. They tend to get mad when you do,” Korra added helpfully. Lin and Kya both turned to glare at her. She held up her hands and backed away a few feet, but her wide grin didn’t falter. “You know I’m right!”</p><p>Kya sighed heavily and bowed her head. She reached up to cover Lin’s hand with her own, lingering there for a long moment, and eventually nodded. “Okay. If you’re both sure,” she finally conceded.</p><p>“We are,” they assured her at the same time, which Korra seemed to find highly amusing. Lin simply rolled her eyes, but she was relieved to hear Kya give at least a weak laugh. She squeezed her arm again.</p><p>“I’ll go have Asami back the truck up; the rest of the pod moved off to twenty miles, is that enough to call off the scouts?”</p><p>At that news, even Kya brightened a bit. Lin couldn’t help but smile when she saw it. “They did? Oh, thank goodness. We can pull the lookouts back in, yes.”</p><p>“Good. I’ll take care of it; you two focus on getting those dolphins ready to get out of here.”</p><p> </p><p>Lin ended up helping steady and carry the smaller dolphin’s stretcher an hour later, arms straining even though the weight was shared across eight people. With the amount of effort it was taking her, she didn’t particularly want to know what it must have felt like to carry the larger male. She kept her leg tight against the stretcher as they shuffled up the beach toward the parking lot and the waiting truck, her arms crossed to opposite handles. Between the volunteers, the dolphin lay mostly still, its pectoral fins slid through a pair of holes built into the stretcher for just that purpose. She couldn’t help but compare it to the awkward way Cabbage or even the human dolphins had sat in stretchers in the training; aside from having to ensure the fins didn’t drag across the ground, this was much easier. It only gave a cursory struggle now and again, nowhere near as violent as the dolphin she had been on the previous night. She hoped it would keep that same level of calmness when they had to lift it in.</p><p>This part of a stranding hadn’t been covered in the training, but when they arrived at the bed of the truck, Korra gave a very clear set of instructions on how to handle the process. Lin was impressed at the level of calm control she was displaying, and had displayed throughout most of the stranding. The easy way Korra climbed into the truck to continue guiding the process was a far cry from her nervous fluttering at the station the first time they’d met.</p><p>As part of the third balanced pair on the stretcher, Lin found herself lifting the dolphin to nearly head height as the first and then second pairs made their way into the truck. The precariousness of the position wasn’t lost on her. If the dolphin decided to begin moving in earnest, someone could easily end up concussed, or even more easily crushed as they dropped it. When it came their turn, as close to the back of the truck as they could physically get, her partner let go of their hold on the stretcher, climbed quickly up onto the truck bed, and resumed their grip. Once she was sure they were steady, Lin copied the movements. The whole group shuffled forward to permit the final pair to do the same, and at last, the dolphin was safely in the truck.</p><p>“Alright, we’re going to move it forward just enough to let them get the other one in. We’ll stay on it until they’ve got that guy into position as well, in case we have to move,” Korra instructed. “Everyone alright?” The group gave her a variety of affirmative reactions. Lin turned over her shoulder to watch as Kya guided the next group in. Several extra people had been called over to help facilitate that one’s lift, considering how large it was.</p><p>Once both had been settled securely on the floor, Lin stepped aside from the gaggle of people filing out of the trailer to find Kya. The vet was standing between the two dolphins, arranging the few volunteers that would be riding with them to the Yue Center. More would meet them there to help unload and move them into the rehab pools. Kya was clearly anxious, the little furrow between her brows still ever-present, and for a second Lin wished she could go with her.</p><p>“I’ll see you when you get back?” She said quietly, unobtrusively picking up Kya’s hand. Kya squeezed and took a deep breath.</p><p>“Yeah. I don’t know how long it’ll take to stabilize them, but like I told Korra, my mom is coming down, so we should have someone to at least keep an eye on things there soon.”</p><p>Lin bumped her shoulder gently into Kya’s. “Well, not exactly how I pictured meeting your family, but I suppose sooner is better than later,” she said, hoping to put at least a bit of light back into Kya’s tired eyes. It worked; Kya responded with a near-silent laugh.</p><p>“They’ll love you. I-”</p><p>“Doc, you might want to take a look at this,” one of the volunteers on the younger dolphin called, voice heavy with concern. Kya immediately pulled away, already moving in that direction before she turned back to Lin and told her, “I’ll see you soon.” Lin nodded once at her and climbed back out of the truck. The rear door rattled shut behind her.</p><p>Having given herself that short break, she made her way back to the little command tent, where Opal too was preparing to leave. Her twin brothers were hovering near the tent waiting for her. They watched Lin with poorly-concealed interest as she approached. In the light of day, she could see a bit more of Su in them, but it wasn’t much. They must have taken after their father. Both had towels slung over their shoulders and reddened marks on their knees where she figured they’d been kneeling in the sand all day and night, and sunburnt faces. Had the one she’d met last night, Wing, not been wearing a distinctively neon green shirt as opposed to Wei’s dull grey, she’d have no idea which was which.</p><p>“You two staying hydrated?” She asked. They looked surprised to be addressed, but shrugged at her. Lin opened the cooler that had been stashed beneath the tables and tossed them each a bottle of water. She closed it again as Opal was shrugging her bag onto her shoulder.</p><p>“Are you sure you have everything? I can stay, it’s really no-”</p><p>Lin put a hand on her shoulder. “Kid. Go home. Get some sleep,” she ordered, not unkindly. It was clear the teen needed to stop; her eyes were reddened and her hair a mess from running her hands through it so often. Opal was eighteen; she was doing remarkably well in this emergency, but she’d been doing so for long enough. </p><p>Opal sighed heavily and nodded. “Okay. I’ll be back tomorrow night though, alright? That way you can go get some sleep before you have to go back to work, too.”</p><p>Despite the heavy day, Lin had to chuckle at the girl’s concern. Coming from someone so much younger, it was endearing. “That sounds like a plan,” she conceded. “Now get!”</p><p>The three teens disappeared over the dune line and Lin turned her focus to the next task she planned to handle. Communication up and down the beach had been improving steadily over the course of the stranding, but the system itself was still unorganized. She’d called Katashi and had him send over whatever spare radios they had in the equipment room. Once they made it here, she’d be able to distribute them so that each group on the beach at least had access to one, if not its own. After that, she intended on snagging at least a handful of volunteers to serve as runners between their pseudo-command and the further areas. A second ATV had been tracked down and was currently making that a bit easier, but having volunteers specifically dedicated to the task would stop them relying on random people walking back and forth between her setup and the animals. An hour ago, Kya’s brother and sister-in-law had shown up with enough food to keep an army maintained, complements of the city commission. With it came several pallets of water bottles and refillable drink coolers. Kya had been too busy to accept, and so Lin had arranged the setup on her behalf. Working with Tenzin and Pema had turned out to be far less awkward when she didn’t have time to overthink it. Their three eldest kids were currently running water bottles from the parking lot to the nearby teams; the two girls at least would probably do well as her first runners. And it would keep the younger one from stopping every few passes to check with Lin and see if there was more she could do.</p><p>She continued her planning as the sun slowly began to sink, the beachside shadows growing longer and longer. Katashi and Rani showed up with a box of radios too large to be believed, and she commandeered Tenzin’s two eldest to distribute them. Knowing that exhaustion would begin knocking at her door, and that a new shift would begin arriving soon, she started drawing up a scheme to make rotate replacements for each team. At the same time, she tried to keep an eye on Korra, knowing how worried Kya would be about her when she returned. The grad student was still going strong, even on her seventh or eighth trip across the entire beach. The good news was, they had been able to arrange several portable overhead lights for the parking lot and the areas nearby. It was now only a single large group and handful of scattered individuals that had stranded well into the park that were relying on flashlights, and Asami had managed to round up several spotlight-style ones that Lin had heard were making life much easier. As it was, she had yet to go much further down the beach than the spot where dolphin twelve and his ill-fated companion had been found, within sight of the initial group.</p><p>The rotations were well underway when she picked a familiar face out of a small group headed to the parking lot. “Mako?” She asked, stunned, as he trudged by. She’d figured that he’d switched out with an incoming volunteer and went home hours ago, but there he was. He stopped short just beside her.</p><p>“Hey, Chief,” he said, voice heavy with an exhaustion she could understand. He was still soaked from head to toe. “How are things in the party tent?”</p><p>Lin pressed her lips together in frustration. “Could be better,” she admitted. “But we’re getting there. Hey, you were on three, right?” She asked.</p><p>He nodded at her. “Yeah, the big guy they sent over to Yue.”</p><p>“Then why are you still here? They sent him off hours ago.”</p><p>“I jumped on one Bolin was working with after that, but we just… well, we just finished with that one,” he said with a wince. “He’s helping Korra right now.”</p><p>She had no idea what possessed her to ask her next question, but she did it anyway. “The one I was on last night, next to you guys, how is he…” She stopped when he shook his head.</p><p>“Kya put it down this morning,” he said. “I didn’t really catch the reason, but it got worse pretty fast.”</p><p>Lin turned to the water, shocked that she could have missed a development like right in front of her. But sure enough, there was only one animal in the water now, and it wasn’t the large one she’d stabilized the night previous. She’d known a small one had come in sometime around noon and stayed in the shallows, but her mind hadn’t quite registered that the two had switched. Her dolphin, with its dented head and the great white scar, lay high on the sand next to the three others from the initial group that had already perished.</p><p>There was every chance Lin had been the one to organize his paperwork. She should have noticed then, or when she saw Wing near the tent waiting for Opal. It should have been clear from the moment she’d seen Kya’s assessment that his chances weren’t good. Somehow, her brain had still failed to register the information. Such a slip-up was out of character for her, but the heaviness in her chest wasn’t from that alone.</p><p>“I figured as much,” she lied, expertly covering her disappointment. “There’s food up in the parking lot; go get yourself some and make sure you get some water into you. And then go <em> home </em>,” she ordered, emphasizing the last bit.</p><p>Mako shook his head. “I’m alright, I want to keep helping. Have you eaten yet?”</p><p>Lin raised an eyebrow. “I’m fine; they’ve sent down drinks and whatnot all day-”</p><p>“I’ll take that as a no,” he said with a laugh, turning before she could stop him to head toward the smell coming from the pavement above them. She wrinkled her nose in displeasure; up until the damned kid had mentioned it, she hadn’t even realized she was hungry. It had to be well past any reasonable hour for dinner.</p><p>Mako came back soon with a plate for each of them and, to her great relief, a hot cup of coffee for her as well. “I’m promoting you,” she declared as he handed her the drink. Mako laughed.</p><p>“To what? RCPD’s first dolphin cop?” To her disgust, he sat down in the sand rather than one of the nearby chairs to start eating. There were a lot of things she’d be just fine doing, but given the option, she would rather avoid ending up with sand in her food, so she stayed seated at the table.</p><p>She didn’t reply until after she’d had a long and bracing sip of coffee. Just like she knew it would be, it was exactly how she preferred it at work: absolutely saturated with sugar. “Don’t give me any ideas,” she warned. “After this, I might just consider making that a position.”</p><p>Mako nodded around a massive bite of his sandwich. Rather than continuing the conversation, they finished their meals together in tired silence. Lin had to pause and take down information every few minutes as her radio chimed, but it was always refreshing in these moments to sit with someone who didn’t require being told what to do. An hour later, when they’d both finished and he’d been decent enough to track down another cup of coffee, Bolin and Korra approached the tent together. The young vet looked considerably worse than she had the last time Lin had seen her, but her expression was still steady and determined.</p><p>“Three more,” she said, her voice deliberately toneless as she handed Lin a clipboard. Like all of Korra’s had been, it was a chaotic mix of notes and forms on several different animals, but all of the pages were clearly labeled with the corresponding dolphin’s number. On some, that was the only thing Lin would consider legible. She unclipped the top and began sorting them into her own set of twenty-three boards, one for each animal left. When she finished, she removed the files for numbers eighteen, twenty-two, and twenty-five.</p><p>“We’re going to head out,” Bolin eventually said, gesturing to himself and Mako. “Korra, why don’t you walk up with us and get something to eat?”</p><p>“I’m fi-” Korra was cut off when her stomach growled loudly, giving her away. “Okay, maybe that does sound like a good idea. Lin, let me know if anything happens, please? I’ll have my radio but I don’t know if it’ll reach the parking lot.”</p><p>Lin didn’t bother pointing out the faulty logic in that statement. When it looked like Mako might, she glared at him until he shut his mouth again. “I’ll keep an ear out,” she promised. Thus assured, Korra followed the two brothers out to the parking lot, and Lin was left to finish her second coffee in peace.</p><p>To her surprise, when Korra returned, it was with Kya in tow. Less surprisingly, the two were arguing again. Before today, Lin had never seen them so much as bicker, but it was becoming apparent that there was one thing neither of them was willing to do without a fight: leave the other alone in an emergency.</p><p>“Korra, you are useless to me without sleep,” Kya said firmly as they made it under the canopy. “It’s been over twenty-four hours. Tomorrow is going to be that much worse than today, and I need your head clear.”</p><p>Korra crossed her arms. “And what about <em> your </em>head? I didn’t see you getting any sleep today, either,” she pointed out. “Come to think of it, I didn’t see Lin, or Asami, or Bolin, or-”</p><p>“Bolin just left, and Asami went home two hours ago,” Kya informed her. “On the condition that I got you to rest. You and I are the only people on this beach who cannot be replaced. I got enough of a break when I took those two to the Center.” Lin had to admit, she made a convincing argument on first glance. Kya stood as tall as ever, every bit her confident, composed self despite the constant stress and lack of sleep. Lin had a split second to wonder if she’d been wrong, and if her girlfriend really was as in-control as she appeared, before the two started in on each other again.</p><p>“But-”</p><p>“Korra, I don’t have the time or the energy to argue with,” Kya finally snapped. “For La’s sake, just trust that I know what I’m doing?” There it was. Looking closer, faint hints of exhaustion began to show on Kya’s face as she grew more frustrated. The tightness around her eyes, the way frown lines had etched themselves into her forehead, little things chipped away the unaffected image.</p><p>Korra glared for another long while before her expression turned worried, answering Lin’s mental question of whether she’d noticed Kya’s fraying as well. “Fine, but I’m not going anywhere,” she conceded. “I can catch a few hours in my car in the parking lot. And you have to swear you’ll wake me up if you need me.”</p><p>“Korra-”</p><p>“I’m serious, Kya. Can you stop for a minute and consider that I don’t want you to do this alone any more than you wanted to leave me alone this afternoon?” Korra interrupted her. Kya opened her mouth to argue once more, but stopped before saying anything. Her face softened, and she reached for the young woman’s hand.</p><p>“I know,” she said, something just shy of a tired smile on her face. “Thank you. Just, please, get some sleep. For me?”</p><p>Korra huffed and rolled her eyes. “I’m going, I’m going,” she muttered, snatching up her water bottle and doing just that.</p><p>Lin settled a hand on Kya’s back as they watched her go. At just that simple touch, she felt Kya’s shoulders almost melt. There was no protege to keep up appearances for now. “She did well,” Lin informed her. “How are the other two doing?”</p><p>“They’re alright; we set them into two of the rehab pools, and there are volunteers helping keep them upright now. Neither one is free swimming, but I figured they wouldn’t be after everything.” She paused to take a sip of water. “I got the big guy started on antibiotics. I’m hoping he responds by morning.”</p><p>The news was honestly better than Lin had been expecting. She was glad, for Kya’s sake as well as the dolphins’. It was good to hear something was finally going right. “And what about you?”</p><p>Kya heaved a sigh. Her expression finally faltered as she looked over the beach, her gaze somehow encompassing far more than the scene in front of them. The cracks Lin had noticed earlier grew a bit larger. Kya opened her mouth to reply, but the crackle of a radio stopped her before she could even begin.</p><p>
  <em> “Chief? You got either of the docs with you right now?” </em>
</p><p>Before Lin could answer it, Kya had already picked it up. “You’ve got Dr. Kya, what’s up?”</p><p>“Dolphin twenty-seven isn’t doing too great. We’re pretty sure he’s got blood coming out of his blowhole.”</p><p>Immediately, Kya’s invulnerable professional expression returned. Had she not recognized the behavior as something she herself had done countless times, Lin may have again questioned the momentary lapse she’d seen. “I’ll be right there,” Kya said. Blood already sounded urgent, but her tone of voice made it seem dire, as did her scrambling to gather up the necessary equipment case. “Someone try and get me a solid respiratory rate before I get there.” She tossed the radio back to the table and took off for the ATV without so much as a backward glance. Lin watched here go, admiration for her girlfriend’s strength and determination warring with concern for what would be left when those finally ran out.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okie doke, after today we should be back to your regularly scheduled mid-month and end-of-month updates.</p><p>CW: Graphic descriptions of animal death; Suyin.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>By the time she’d made it back to their improvised command center, Kya’s eyes were burning, but the sight of Lin and Opal there together was bolstering. It looked like the police chief was catching Opal up on what she had missed when she’d gone home. She was glad to see Lin still there. Kya had heard in passing that she was needed back at the station, and that she’d be leaving sometime that day, and that Opal and Iroh would be taking over for her. Much as she hated that Lin had to leave, she understood. It was another sign that things had been going on for too long now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hey,” Lin said when she looked up and saw Kya coming. “Welcome back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya just nodded, sitting down heavily in one of the folding chairs and gladly accepting the water bottle that Iroh offered her. She downed nearly half in one go before reaching for one of the nearby forms, a bold red ‘17’ in the top corner. It was an animal she’d been on less than an hour ago. When she scanned the form, she was relieved to find that the information was all current, her most recent assessment and the notes she’d taken already attached beneath the stranding report. Lin’s runner system had been nothing short of life-saving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if on cue, Jinora came sprinting up, a clipboard clutched in her hands. “Notes from Korra on twenty-one A and B,” she said, unclipping them and handing them to Lin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The whistler?” Kya asked, picking up the pair’s designated clipboard as soon as Lin had organized the new information on it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. Korra just left them to check on twenty-three and twenty-four, but she said they were still doing really well. Twenty-one A and B, I mean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya nodded slowly. She scanned over the initial assessment information and then took a look at Korra’s newest notes. The pair had already been marked high priority; they’d been in good condition since they’d been found and the mother, at least, was responding to hydration and steroids. They were already planning on moving them at the next opportunity, Kya just needed to give a final check so they had a final record of the animals’ vitals before they were moved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your truck for them should be here within the hour,” Lin said. “One of Iroh’s off-roaders.” She nodded again as though she didn’t already know. A fire department pickup truck had been arranged for this pair, because of their location in the middle of the wildlife reserve. Transporting them in open air wasn’t exactly ideal, but they didn’t have access to many vehicles that could make it that far down a sandy beach. Carrying them back to the nearest access point would have meant several miles in the stretcher. It would never have worked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They’re lining the bottom of the bed with gym mats,” Iroh told her. “We figured that would be less damaging than the plastic floor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She took a moment to smile at him. “Iroh, remind me to remind your mother that you’re the best,” she said seriously, reaching out to grab his hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll hold you to that,” he told her, squeezing back lightly. “Let’s just see if you still think so after Chief Beifong leaves us in charge.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin rolled her eyes at him. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” she said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya sighed as she stood up with the clipboard in hand, the reminder that Lin was leaving settling heavily in her chest. It wasn’t as though she had really been able to spend time with her girlfriend, but seeing her at all, even from a distance, had been one of the things keeping her grounded. Knowing that Lin was nearby and that she’d be there immediately if Kya needed her had been like having a safety net beneath a tightrope. Standing beside her was like finding the calm in the middle of a storm. Kya wasn’t looking forward to losing one of the only things she currently considered stable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I need to take this with me and do a final check on them,” she said eventually. “I’ll radio back if anything changes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looked at Lin, knowing the police chief was exhausted, that she needed to leave soon, but suddenly Kya was overwhelmed by a need to be near her for just a moment longer. “Lin, why don’t you give me a lift?” She asked before she could think better of it. “You can bring the ATV back here in case someone needs it while I’m supervising the transfer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin turned to look at her, brow furrowing in just a bit of confusion as she searched Kya’s face. Kya silently pleaded with her to just go with it. After a moment, she seemed to understand. Her face softened as she nodded. “Lead the way,” she said, gesturing toward the ATV.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya climbed onto the seat at the control. She waited for Lin to settle in behind her and thread her arms around Kya’s middle, then squeezed the throttle. The engine roared as they took off down the beach toward the mother-calf pair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once they cleared the main hub of activity, Kya allowed herself to relax back into Lin just the smallest bit. Lin shifted her grip higher and pulled herself closer. She pressed a kiss to Kya’s wetsuited shoulder before resting her chin there, effectively wrapped around Kya like a backpack, her thighs pressed into Kya’s and strong arms wrapped around her ribs. In turn, Kya tilted her head to the side for a moment, allowing it to rest against Lin’s until the terrain made doing so difficult. Even through three millimeters of neoprene, she could feel the stable warmth against her back. She couldn’t close her eyes, but oh how she wanted to. To just sink back into Lin’s arms and disappear from the world, into a warm, dry place where she didn’t have to keep running and thinking and making decisions. But that wasn’t going to happen today. She was needed, these dolphins needed her. So she kept on going, drawing strength from her girlfriend for the three miles they had together.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They closed in on the pair within minutes, stopping the ATV high enough on the beach not to disturb them. The moment the engine quieted, she could hear the mother’s distinctive whistling, still carrying on after over a day. It was heartening that the clear, oscillating call hadn’t weakened. “Have you heard this one yet?” She asked Lin with a faint smile as they dismounted. Before Kya had a moment to mourn the loss of contact between them, Lin’s hand had settled lightly on the small of her back. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin shook her head. “Has she really been doing it the whole time?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yep. It’s called a signature whistle; it’s kind of like their name. She’s just trying to make sure little B is still next to her,” Kya said. They both headed over to where Korra and the individual lead were standing. Apparently, the grad student had made it back after her other checks. “How do they look?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pretty good, considering,” Korra replied. “Mom’s still going strong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya nodded, watching the two dolphins critically. Overall, this had been one of the strongest pairs on the beach. The only reason she hadn’t given the go-ahead to move them yet was because of how difficult access was. “Any more vocals from the calf?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They said not since last night,” Korra said with a frown. “Everything else has been stable; he doesn’t look too bad. I’m wondering if he’s exhausted or if he just knows where mom is at this point.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had a point; though the calf had initially responded to its mother’s calls with a repetition of the same signature whistle, ostensibly its own, the fact that it had stopped wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. “Well, then it’s a good thing they’ll be moved soon. We can keep a closer eye on the little guy and at least get him within mom’s line of sight. The truck should be here any minute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It sounds like that’s my cue to go make sure it’s on time,” Lin said gently. Kya felt the weight of her hand lift off her back and sighed, knowing that she couldn’t drag it out any longer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you, before you head out?” She asked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course.” Lin paused and looked her over, eyes as sharp as ever. Kya wondered if that was what she looked like when she looked at one of the animals. Whatever the results of Lin’s assessment were, she didn’t say. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening,” she promised instead. “I’ll see you then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“See you then,” Kya agreed, reaching out to squeeze her hand one last time. Lin stepped back, nodded once at Korra, and jogged back to the ATV. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After Lin disappeared, Kya turned back to the dolphins, and then to Korra once again. While Kya had stayed with the animals on the northern end of the stranding, Korra had spent most of her time on the south end with the dolphins in the twenties. “I want you to go with them this time,” she told the grad student. “You know them better than I do; you’ll be the lead on this pair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Korra looked at her in shock. For a moment, her eyes lit with enough excitement it overpowered the grimness that had been set on her features for days. “Really?” She asked. Kya couldn’t help but smile; even her voice sounded more like her normal self.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She understood the enthusiasm. This would be the first time she’d really be giving Korra full leadership in caring for a stranding case; typically, there were only one or two animals, and Kya remained in charge. And it wasn’t like she would be completely hands-off this time, either, but with the number of individuals involved it made sense for her to hand some of the responsibility to Korra. “Really. I trust you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanks, Boss,” Korra said with a strained grin. Kya gave her a weak smile in return, and hoped for Korra’s sake that the case would turn out well in the end.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>After a final check in with Yung Shu, who had taken over the operation maintaining the police line, Lin had to admit to herself that a shower and her bed sounded better and better with every step she took. Part of her felt guilty about it, knowing that the others, Korra and Kya in particular, wouldn’t receive the same luxury for at least a day or two longer, but she couldn’t keep putting off the fact that she was needed elsewhere. She was the chief of police; two days out of the office without notice was already pushing it, even if her assistant chiefs had been amazing about covering for her. Saikhan would be stepping in to oversee the whole of the police operations on the beach when she left. He’d called to say he’d made it to the parking lot, and she was on her way to brief him, her last task before finally heading home, when she overheard a conversation going on behind a trailer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Is it true that this could have been caused by the construction of the new dam in Mo Ce?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin felt her lip curl at the insistent voice. Someone had obviously slipped through the line somehow, and was probably harassing her AC now that he’d arrived. She had to admit, the questions were odd. Saikhan obviously wouldn't have those answers. “Could it be toxins leaking from the building site killing these dolphins?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have no comment.” That wasn’t her AC. It was </span>
  <em>
    <span>Kya’s </span>
  </em>
  <span>voice that responded, and Lin’s blood boiled. The last she’d seen of her girlfriend had been a little over an hour ago, when she’d left her on the beach. The mom and calf must have just left, for her to be all the way back here. She stormed across the parking lot and rounded the truck to see Kya push her way past a reporter and her cameraman. Saikhan was there as well, trying to put distance between the three with little success. The reason why became obvious when Lin recognized the reporter instantly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suyin darted around him, matching Kya stride for stride. “What can you say about the number of dolphins that have already died? How many will you be able to save? Will the survivors be spending the rest of their lives in captivity?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya determinedly kept her face forward. “I’ve told you multiple times now, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I have no comment</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she repeated. Her voice stayed firm, but Lin could hear the note of strain in it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you and your partner to-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cameraperson held a badge up at Saikhan, not even sparing him a glare. “We have a right to be here,” she said, shoving by. Undaunted, he doubled back and got between the three again in an attempt to allow Kya to get over the dune line and back to the command tent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kya seemed to catch sight of the badge out of the corner of her eye. “That’s a Yue Center badge,” she exclaimed, her voice running thin. She reached out and tried to grab it, but the camerawoman snatched it away. “Where did you get that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su immediately jumped between them and thrust a microphone in Kya’s face, nearly hitting her in the nose, and she reeled back. “Dr. Kya, is it true you’ve decided to euthanize several of the beached animals?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The look that came over Kya’s face was too much for Lin to stand. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Suyin!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” All four looked up suddenly at her shout, giving her time to cross the rest of the pavement between them. Su in particular seemed stunned. Lin glanced up to check on Kya, who looked more relieved than Lin had ever seen her, before focusing back on her sister. “Mrs. Beifong, I believe my officer asked you to leave. You are currently in a restricted area and interfering with official Republic City operations.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It seemed to take Su a moment to register her words, but when she did, she crossed her arms imperiously. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Chief</span>
  </em>
  <span> Beifong, this is an animal welfare issue affecting the entire city; residents have a right to know what’s going on with their natural resources.” Both Saikhan and Kya’s eyes blew wide as they realized what, exactly, was happening. The camerawoman’s face simply set in distaste. “My viewers want answers, and either I’ll get them or I’ll let them know just how reticent the Yue Center is being with that information.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mrs. Beifong, I just don’t have the time to stop and answer your questions,” Kya insisted. Lin’s heart sank when she saw Su lock onto the note of desperation in Kya’s voice. “I assure you nothing questionable is going on here, but I have no one to spare that will give you a clear description of what is happening.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The reporter didn’t move an inch. “I’ll run my story and the people will listen either way, Doctor.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. “Would more of them listen if you had a statement from the Chief of Police?” She said before she could change her mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su stopped and turned back toward her slowly. She eyed Lin shrewdly for a long moment. “The great Chief Beifong is finally willing to give me an interview?” She questioned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“On this operation only,” Lin told her firmly. “But the deal won’t be on the table long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And what authority do you have to talk about it?” The camerawoman demanded.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin looked back at her still-borderline-panicking girlfriend. “Dr. Kya, do I have your permission to speak on the overall operation? Obviously I cannot speak to the science or the dolphins themselves, but as far as inter-agency cooperation and the logistics of what’s going on?” Kya nodded almost frantically. Lin noticed that Saikhan had taken the opportunity to move himself between her and the others. He watched Lin with keen eyes, clearly waiting for any signal to remove Kya from the situation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su still didn’t look convinced. “It’s not much use to me without someone who can explain what-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Lin’s voice had startled her, Opal’s sent actual fear into Suyin’s eyes. Lin turned just in time to watch the teenager’s face shift from confusion to all out fury. “What are you doing here? I told you not to follow me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Opal, honey, I-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Is that my badge?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Opal demanded. Her voice had risen in pitch and volume as well. “That’s where it went this morning? Kuvira, give me that right now!” She stormed up to the camerawoman, who was glancing between mother and daughter warily, and ripped the badge out of her hand. Lin raised her eyebrows, impressed at the backbone she previously hadn’t seen from her niece. She’d inherited the Beifong temper after all. “I cannot believe you followed me here! Turn that fucking camera off!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Young lady!” Su tried again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No! Off, now.” Kuvira waited for Su’s nod before switching the camera off and lowering it from her shoulder to prove she was no longer recording. “Dr. Kya is my friend, and on top of that, she has a job to do. Those dolphins’ lives are at stake, and while you hold her here and try to make some sensational news story off of it, they could literally die. Did you even think about that, Mom?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su crossed her arms again, but this time the posturing looked more defensive than anything else. It seemed that when she was faced with her daughter’s wrath, a considerable amount of her ruthlessness had left her. “Well, I’ll have you know that I was about to let Dr. Kya return to her duties now that Chief Beifong has agreed to give a statement on her behalf.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Opal’s jaw dropped wide open. “You’re using Kya to force Aunt Lin into-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay, Kid,” Lin cut her off. She put a hand on Opal’s shoulder and gave her a brief, grateful look. “I offered. Your mom and I were just about to step somewhere quieter to get on with it. It will be a good opportunity to… talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was then, with Opal still glaring at her mother and the Beifong sisters staring each other down, that Kya finally seemed to recover her voice. “Lin, are you sure?” She asked softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quite.” Lin made sure to keep her own voice clipped and professional, trying not to give anything away, but she saw Su notice Kya’s use of her first name. “Mrs. Beifong, shall we? We can return to your studio or my station, or use the police field command, whichever you prefer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your station would be just fine,” Su said slowly. “If you could be so kind as to give us a ride?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Making sure she didn’t run. “My pleasure,” Lin said, hoping her expression conveyed to Su that it was anything but. She gestured toward her car, took one last look at Kya’s anxious expression, and walked away without saying goodbye. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Lin settled into one of the chairs in the press room at the station and forced herself not to cross her arms as her sister took the seat across from her. Her camerawoman sat not far away, lining the two of them up in her camera’s lens, but hadn’t yet given the signal that she was recording. “So,” Suyin said primly, opening a notebook that Lin knew was just for show, “How have you been?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s just get this over with,” Lin told her flatly. “I came here to give you an interview, not to make small talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su had the audacity to roll her eyes. “Oh please. This is the first time you’ve been willing to stay in the same room as me in thirty years, forgive me for asking after your health! That’s what normal siblings do, you know. For instance, I’m doing very well, thank you for asking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” Lin informed her. “Would you like to know about the stranding situation or not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Catch me up on the general state of affairs while Kuvira finishes setting up the camera,” Su said with a sigh. “What’s actually going on out there? I need some kind of information so I can give the story a proper introduction.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin squared her shoulders and shifted into her standard press-response mode. If she just acted like this was any old interview, not a concession to her sister of all people, it would be that much easier to get through. “Several bottlenose dolphins were reported stranded south of Yue Light late Friday evening. Over the course of that night and Saturday, a total of thirty-one animals stranded across the municipal beach, spreading south throughout Bosco Wildlife Refuge as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently, the notebook wasn’t just for show. “They didn’t all beach themselves at once?” Su questioned as she wrote. Every few seconds, she glanced back up at Lin as the police chief gave her answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. They stranded over the period of a day or so; I don’t know nor am I at liberty to discuss the exact time frame.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su huffed impatiently at her. “That was purely my own curiosity; I’m going to ask you that again when the camera is rolling,” she warned. “You can withhold the ‘liberty’ caveat, I get it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you, though?” Lin questioned. “Opal wasn’t joking when she said you can’t sensationalize this. You paint one word I say wrong, the Yue Center goes down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m well aware,” Su snapped. She paused her writing and visibly took a breath before looking back up at Lin. When she did, her eyes were surprisingly honest. “The Yue Center happens to be very important to my daughter. To several of my children. Despite what you may think, I’m not out to end Dr. Kya’s career. I just want to let people know the truth.” Su leaned forward, as though she was considering reaching out to set a hand on Lin’s knee, and apparently thought better of it. As a tentative repayment, Lin kept a bitter comment about Suyin’s reporting of the “truth” to herself. They both knew all too well the ability of a news anchor to skew a story one way or the other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ready to record when you are, Boss,” Kuvira said from behind the camera. The moniker reminded Lin of the way Korra addressed Kya, and she wondered for a moment how the two of them were doing. Kya had looked so worried when she left.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She didn’t have long to dwell on it before Suyin was talking again. “Alright, I know you’ve been through this process before, but it hasn’t been with me, so here’s how this is going to go: I’ll ask you a few questions about what’s going on down on the beach. I promise I won’t ask any actual scientific questions, but I’ll have to ask if you know why they’ve stranded.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We don’t,” Lin informed her shortly. “So don’t ask.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su sent her a frustrated glare. “I know that, but my viewers don’t. If you don’t know, just say it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why ask if you already-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Because they’re going to expect me to ask.</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Her tone was exasperated, as though she were speaking to a child. Lin felt her hackles raise once more and instinctively shifted so that her feet were flatter on the floor. “So I’m going to ask you redundant questions because my viewers won’t understand the first time, and I’ll ask questions you and I both already know the answers to because they won’t have those answers. I know you’re familiar with that concept, so if you’d please stop being belligerent just because </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m </span>
  </em>
  <span>the one sitting across from you, it would be much appreciated.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin simply glared. “Fine. Get on with it then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Roll camera,” Su barked. Kuvira did as she was told, looking very much like she’d rather be anywhere else in the world. The moment she raised her hand and called out a series of words and numbers, Lin sat up straighter and focused on putting on her most professional airs, rearranging her expression into a carefully neutral one. She saw Suyin go through a similar process as well. Within a moment, gone was the frustrated and demanding woman, and in her place was a cheerful, interested reporter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su gave a brief introduction by paraphrasing what Lin had told her only minutes ago. Lin was loath to admit it, but it was impressive how quickly Su had absorbed the information and was able to repeat it. She introduced Lin as well and they exchanged the cursory “Thank you for being here” and “Thank you for having me” pleasantries before Su launched into her first question.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It makes a lot of sense for an organization like Yue Marinelife Center and our hometown hero Dr. Kya to be involved in this kind of event, but who’s actually in charge of what’s going on down there? Does that become the RCPD’s job?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, the Yue Center is in full control of the situation, and RCPD’s role is entirely supportive. These dolphins are managed by national authorities rather than local. Dr. Kya and her assistant Dr. Korra are the ones with the national permits and accreditations to handle these species. Neither the RCPD nor any of the other volunteers would be able to get involved without their permission or that of another expert on their level.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had a hard time determining whether Su’s interested nod was genuine or simply part of her persona. “And what’s their plan for handling all of this, then? Can we trust them with our beloved dolphins?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I’m not at liberty to comment on the position or plans of the Yue Center. But Dr. Kya is fully competent and I firmly believe she will actively focus on the best interest of the animals and this town,” Lin said with conviction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, with that kind of commendation from our chief of police, I certainly trust her!” Su exclaimed with a beaming smile. “And even without that, her reputation precedes her. Now, I don’t know if you’ve had the pleasure of visiting the Center, but my family and I have, and it’s certainly an interesting place. I learned more about the ocean than I ever wanted to, that’s for sure. And Dr. Kya is the one who started it all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have had the chance to visit, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is able to do the same,” Lin agreed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And if they’re the ones leading the response, what kind of support are the other agencies involved giving?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The RCPD, the fire department, and the Republic City Veterans’ Affairs office have all received training from the Yue Center on how to safely assist during a marine mammal stranding, and all have sent as many people as they can spare to help with that level of on-the-ground work holding or carrying animals, helping keep them shaded and cool, and anything else the veterinarians need. Nearby wildlife facilities and national research agencies have also sent representatives and offered use of their facilities as needed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, you mentioned before that this goes all the way up to a national government level, and we all know those sorts of things can take quite some time to clear up. Do you have a timeframe for when the beach and nearby roads will be open to the public once more?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yue Beach will remain closed to visitors for the foreseeable future, but by our estimations RCPD will be able to reopen the roads within the next several days,” Lin said, keeping her answer deliberately vague. The way things were going, it really did seem like the situation would be handled in the coming days, but she didn’t want to give a date and force Kya into a specific deadline without word from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now, my last question before I let you get back to work, and the one on everyone’s mind: do we know the reason for why all of these dolphins have suddenly washed up? It’s certainly not something we see every day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Unfortunately, we don’t know at this time. From my understanding, it can be difficult to determine the underlying cause of a marine mammal stranding in the best of situations, and obviously this isn’t that. I’m no dolphin scientist, so I’m sure representatives from the Yue Center will likely be able to give better information on that in the future.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, there we have it: an explanation from Chief Beifong herself. Republic City News will certainly be following this situation as it continues to unfold, and we’ll keep you updated as we continue on. Until then, Chief Beifong, thank you again for taking your time to answer our questions, and we wish you and the Yue Center the best of luck as things keep playing out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lin nodded graciously once more. “Thank you, Suyin.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And, camera wrapped,” Kuvira said after several more seconds. “I’ll check the playback now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you for keeping that professional,” Su said as Kuvira reviewed the footage to ensure everything came through clear. “So, you certainly seem to know Dr. Kya well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tone of her voice didn’t sit well with Lin. Officially, there was no issue with her and Kya’s relationship, but something about Suyin knowing made her hackles raise. “As well as anyone I work with,” she said shortly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Apparently noticing that topic of conversation would go nowhere, Su sighed. “Look. I know… I know you’re not exactly interested in talking to me, but it was nice to-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Save it,” Lin cut her off. It had been a long three days, and she was in no mood to hear her sister attempting to play the victim the way she nearly always did. “I came to give you an interview, not to chat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A look of hurt flashed across Su’s expression, but just like during the interview, Lin was hard pressed to tell whether it was fake. She didn’t press, instead sitting quietly until her assistant confirmed that the footage was good. When she did, Lin quickly stood to leave. “Lin,” Su tried one final time as she headed toward the door. Lin had no idea what possessed her to turn around, but she did. “I know Opal has been spending time with you lately. It’s been rather important to her, so I wanted to say thank you for that. And to tell you that she truly hasn’t been sharing any of the details of that time with me. She… knows how private you are.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She couldn’t help but soften at the mention of the niece she was admittedly beginning to grow fond of. “She’s a good kid,” Lin admitted gruffly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Su looked torn for a second, and she knew what was coming next before she even spoke. “Have you… did you tell her about-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Lin stated. “I figure that’s your job.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suyin at least had the grace to look away. Perhaps she was imagining it, but Lin thought she could catch a shade of shame across her expression. “Thank you. And thank you again for the interview. I know it was strictly professional, but it was nice, being able to talk again. Even if you don’t feel the same way.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t,” Lin said. “But your kid is becoming important to me. So maybe at some point, I’ll try to.” She didn’t give Su the time to answer before striding out of the room and making a beeline for her car and the safe comfort of her own home.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I swear I didn't mean for Su to become so... that.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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